ASEAN’s Myanmar peace plan not hard to implement, Malaysia foreign minister says

ASEAN’s four-year-old plan for peace in Myanmar is not difficult to implement and the military regime should adhere to it and allow humanitarian aid to be distributed, Malaysia’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Mohamad Hasan also said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc could not stop regime scheduled elections in Myanmar set to being on Dec. 28 but its foreign ministers want the contest to be fair and inclusive.

ASEAN agreed on a “Five-Point Consensus” peace plan with Myanmar’s regime leader Min Aung Hlaing a few months after protests against a 2021 coup morphed into a broader rebellion against military rule, but the regime has been accused of ignoring it.

“The Five-Point Consensus is not too difficult [to implement]. It would be good to have a dialogue, to allow aid to reach people and go back to dialogue with all parties,” Mohamad Hasan told reporters after a meeting with his ASEAN counterparts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ahead of a leaders summit this weekend.

The peace plan has largely been a failure, with the regime in Naypyidaw unwilling to engage in dialogue with opponents it views as “terrorists”.