Asean foreign ministers have agreed to develop benchmarks for measuring progress in Myanmar and began discussing appointing a longer-term special envoy, as the regional grouping sought to strengthen implementation of its long-stalled Five-Point Consensus peace plan.
The proposals, discussed during an extended informal consultation on Myanmar on the sidelines of the 59th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila on Tuesday, will now be refined by senior officials before going to Asean leaders at their November summit, said Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma Theresa Lazaro.
The discussions followed an informal meeting in Bangkok on July 12 that brought together nearly all Asean foreign ministers and Myanmar’s foreign minister for the first time since the military seized power in 2021.
In Manila, ministers revisited proposals from the Bangkok meeting, including creating an Asean framework to assess progress in Myanmar and exploring a longer-term special envoy instead of rotating the role annually.
“We have tasked the senior officials to really give meat and discuss this carefully because this is an input to the leaders’ meeting in November,” Lazaro, who also serves as the Asean chair’s special envoy to Myanmar, told reporters.
She said that Brunei had proposed establishing a unit within the Asean Secretariat to support the envoy’s work, although issues such as funding and operational arrangements still needed to be resolved.
The discussions took place as Asean foreign ministers gathered in Manila ahead of meetings this week with major dialogue partners including the United States, China and Russia, against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, South China Sea tensions and conflicts stretching from Myanmar to the Middle East.
The Bangkok meeting had prompted speculation that Asean might be softening its approach towards Myanmar’s military rulers after years of diplomatic stalemate.
Lazaro, however, reiterated in a July 19 statement that the discussions should not be interpreted as a departure from the Five-Point Consensus, adopted by Asean leaders in 2021 following the Myanmar military coup.
Asked whether Asean still believed the Five-Point Consensus remained viable after Myanmar’s Parliament had rejected it, Lazaro said Myanmar Foreign Minister Tin Muang Swe had disputed that characterisation during the Bangkok meeting.
“He defended that the Five-Point Consensus still exists, so whatever resolution was passed in Parliament then is practically negated, because he mentioned to us that it’s no longer there,” she said. — The Straits Times/ANN
