Myanmar leaders’ return to ASEAN meetings ‘still far off’, Special Envoy says

The participation of Myanmar leaders in top meetings of the Association of Southeast ​Asian Nations (ASEAN) is “still far off”, the Philippines’ foreign ‌minister and Special Envoy on Myanmar said on Thursday.

• Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war, may not return yet as its compliance with ASEAN’s ​peace initiative, known as the “five-point consensus”, was still ​being assessed, Maria Theresa Lazaro told a press ⁠conference after an ASEAN meeting.

• “It’s still far off,” said ​Lazaro, who is also ASEAN’s special envoy on Myanmar. “There ​have been a lot of questions on their compliance.”

• Lazaro, who will lead a humanitarian mission there later in the year, said it ​was not certain if she would be granted ​access to detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was toppled ‌from ⁠power in a 2021 military coup.

• The bloc will come up with benchmarks to measure progress on the peace roadmap and failure to meet those would constitute non-compliance, she ​added.

• Myanmar’s former ​top general Min Aung ⁠Hlaing, inaugurated as Myanmar’s president by a pro-military parliament on April 10, agreed to the plan with ASEAN in April 2021, two ​months after he launched the coup that plunged ​the ⁠country into turmoil.

• ASEAN later barred Myanmar’s senior regime officials from its top meetings for failure to implement the roadmap, which calls ⁠for ​dialogue, cessation of hostilities and ​humanitarian access.

• Myanmar’s pro-military parliament recently passed a motion rejecting the five-point consensus, ​calling it interference.