Asean has no licence to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs: Singapore

Myanmar’s troubles with national unity has been going on since WWII and the coup only exacerbated that, Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan says

While Asean member states condemn the military coup, it does not give them the right to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs, he adds

Reading Time:3 minutes

Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan underscored that Myanmar had been struggling to forge a common identity and bring its various component parts together since World War II. Photo: AP

Published: 7:10pm, 27 Feb 2023Updated: 7:43pm, 27 Feb 2023

The disapproval by Asean member states of Myanmar’s 2021 coup does not give the regional bloc a licence to interfere in the country’s affairs, Singapore’s top diplomat said on Monday, adding that he believed the current state of affairs under junta rule appeared to be headed to a “dead end”.

Answering questions about Myanmar during a debate on the foreign ministry’s budget, Vivian Balakrishnan underscored that the country had been struggling to forge a common identity and bring its various component parts together since World War II.

“This coup, two years in the making, has not helped,” Foreign Minister Balakrishnan said. “If you ask me for my opinion, I think it is a dead end. It’s not going to be to a road where you will achieve national reconciliation.”

Members of the Myanmar military march at a parade ground to mark the country’s Independence Day in Naypyidaw on January 4, 2023. Photo: AFP

Nonetheless, Singapore, like other Asean countries, was against “foreign interference in domestic affairs” and believed that the crisis could only be solved if internal stakeholders had an “honest-to-goodness conversation with each other for the sake of the future of their people”.

“So we must understand that although we clearly disapprove of the coup, and we don’t recognise the current military junta, it does not give Asean a licence to interfere in its domestic affairs,” he said.

During the debate, Balakrishnan was also queried about a meeting among the foreign ministers of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the foreign policy chief of the Myanmar junta in December.

It was not an Asean meeting and the top diplomats of countries most vocal against junta rule – Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei – were not present.

Balakrishnan suggested that the attendees of the meeting – the “immediate neighbours” of Myanmar – faced a “risk of refugee outflows” and “would be at a greater hurry to see a resolution and may be prepared to compromise on the means by which the post-coup crisis is resolved”.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x