After Malaysia’s NUG meeting, will Asean approach towards Myanmar shift?
- Malaysia’s Foreign Minister this week informally met a member of Myanmar’s opposition NUG party, in a departure from Asean’s policy of seeking consensus among the 10 members
- The move brings to question just how far stakeholders in the regional bloc were willing to go to push for substantive changes in the way Myanmar handles its internal strife, analysts say
The recent engagement between Malaysia and Myanmar’s shadow administration appeared to be a push too far for Myanmar’s ruling junta, which accused the senior Asean member of supporting terrorism by holding talks with representatives of Myanmar’s ousted civilian leadership.
In some of its most blunt remarks towards Malaysia, Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) – which was formed after the military’s coup in February last year – criticised Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah for “violating international anti-terrorism agreements” by meeting the outlawed National Unity Government (NUG) on the sidelines of the US-Asean summit in Washington.
Saifuddin’s meeting with Zing Mar Aung, his counterpart in the NUG, was a clear departure from the policy of seeking consensus among the 10 members of Asean, of which Myanmar is also a member.
But it was also not the first time Malaysia’s chief diplomat had pushed the envelope in Asean, in response to the deadly unrest that has unfolded over the past year since the military takeover of Myanmar’s government.
Last year, Saifuddin was among the leading voices that pushed to exclude political representation from Myanmar’s junta at the annual Asean Summit in October, an unusually bold move by the regional bloc that typically favours non-interference in the affairs of member states.
Malaysia and Myanmar have also had rough patches in their relations over the years, particularly related to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees seeking to escape systematic oppression by Myanmar authorities and who view Malaysia as a safe haven.
Nothing moved, more people were killed, more people fled the country ... we can’t wait another year
This time around, Saifuddin has said that the conditions are ripe for Asean and its external partners to broaden their Myanmar outreach to at least include informal engagements with the NUG, as the junta has done little to move forward with implementation of the Asean Five-Point Consensus on the situation in Myanmar that was agreed upon a year ago.