Thailand’s Myanmar Outreach Slammed by Former Thai Foreign Minister, UN Experts

A former Thai foreign minister and three former UN human rights experts on Tuesday slammed Bangkok’s engagement with putschist president Min Aung Hlaing as a catastrophe for Myanmar.

In a joint statement, Kasit Piromya and ex-UN experts Marzuki Darusman, Yanghee Lee, and Chris Sidoit said Thailand’s “short-sighted and self-interested” decision to engage with the accused warlord had shattered ASEAN’s unified stance on Myanmar’s crisis and emboldened the regime to commit more bloodshed.

They pointed out that a day after Min Aung Hlaing returned from his August 6-7 trip to Thailand, his regime rejected a request by ASEAN’s Special Envoy to meet with detained civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. It also declared that an ASEAN Special Envoy for Myanmar was no longer necessary, said the quartet, who are founding members of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M).