Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai
Thailand’s top diplomat said yesterday that he met with ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention over the weekend and she conveyed her openness to engage in talks to resolve the crisis gripping her strife-torn nation.
Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai is the only government official outside of Myanmar known so far to have met with Suu Kyi since she was detained with other officials when the army seized power from her elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.
He told his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, who are meeting in Indonesia’s capital, that Suu Kyi was in good health when he met with her for more than an hour on Sunday.
“She encourages dialogue,” Don told reporters in Jakarta when asked what message Suu Kyi conveyed to him. “Obviously we’re trying to find a way to settle with Myanmar.”
The military takeover and the crackdown on the armed resistance to it plunged the country into deadly chaos. Western and European governments, including the United States, have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military government and demanded the immediate release of Suu Kyi and other political detainees.
Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government — Myanmar’s main opposition organization, which views itself as the country’s legitimate government — told The Associated Press that the information about the meeting between the Thai foreign minister and Suu Kyi raised questions, and Myanmar’s people are uncertain that it actually took place..
He added that the military junta’s attempt to try to use the influence of Suu Kyi at this time is indirectly admitting that they are no longer in a good situation concerning the country’s political crisis.
Suu Kyi, 78, is serving a total of 33 years imprisonment after being convicted on a raft of charges that her supporters and rights groups say were politically motivated in an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the military’s takeover while preventing her from returning to politics.
A legal official from Myanmar who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities because he is not authorized to release information about Suu Kyi’s legal proceedings told the AP that Suu Kyi’s lawyers on Wednesday submitted appeal arguments to the Supreme Court on her behalf for the five corruption cases where she was found guilty.
The Myanmar crisis is at the top of the agenda of the ministerial meetings of ASEAN, a 10-nation bloc that includes Myanmar and Indonesia, which is the group’s chairman this year.
ASEAN has been under international pressure to address the crisis, and it again banned Myanmar’s generals from attending ASEAN foreign ministerial meetings in Jakarta after the military government largely ignored an emergency plan to take steps to end the crisis.
The generals responded by accusing ASEAN of violating the bloc’s bedrock principles of nonintervention in each other’s domestic affairs. JIM GOMEZ & EDNA TARIGAN, JAKARTA, MDT/AP
