KUALA LUMPUR: As Asean Chair, Malaysia is planning to head to Myanmar again for peace talks with the country’s military junta, says Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan.
He said this time around, the Malaysian team will be presenting a list of requests from the various armed ethnic groups to Myanmar’s State Administrative Council (SAC) leadership.
“We have already met with the respective stakeholders (in Myanmar) and we know their wishlist. Now, we want to present it to the SAC and wait for feedback,” he told reporters after chairing an extended Asean Troika meeting on Myanmar yesterday.
Mohamad said peace talks are a continuous process, where negotiations have to be conducted from time to time in order to build mutual trust.
“Most importantly, we must build confidence and there has to be a bridge between warring factions there,” he added.
He said the meeting, which was also attended by his Asean counterparts, has concluded that Myanmar-related matters must be handled carefully.
“Myanmar is a family within Asean and we have a responsibility to ensure that the country is in good condition.
“It is not that we want to interfere, but its internal affairs have become an issue to Asean nations,” he explained.
Internal issues in Myanmar, such as ongoing civil war and transnational crime, have affected neighbouring countries, he said.
“We discussed ways to ensure that the SAC will abide by the Five-Point Consensus,” he said, pointing to the complexity of the Myanmar issue as it involves conflicts between the SAC and various different ethnic armed groups.
“This is the challenge in our negotiations, but all of our friends in Asean agreed that we need to continuously engage all sides in Myanmar,” Mohamad said.
The Five-Point Consensus by Asean lays out a roadmap for peace and calls for an immediate cessation of violence, inclusive national dialogue, humanitarian assistance and peaceful resolution to the conflict.
However, it has been criticised for being ineffective in stopping violence in Myanmar.
The Myanmar civil war, which was sparked by the coup d’etat by its military junta in February 2021, has created lawless border regions that have allowed criminal syndicates to set up “scam parks”, where foreign nationals are trafficked into the country and forced to commit scams.
