ASEAN mission to visit Myanmar this week

03 June 2021
ASEAN mission to visit Myanmar this week
(File) Police trucks are parked and block the road in front of the City Hall in Yangon, Myanmar, 13 April 2021. Photo: EPA

The chair and secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plan to travel to Myanmar this week even as the 10-nation group remains divided on how to respond to the military coup there, four diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency.

Myanmar is a member of ASEAN and has a policy of non-interference in the affairs of members, but it has led the main diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis that has engulfed the country since February 1 when the military staged a coup and removed the democratically elected government.

Erywan Yusof, the second minister for foreign affairs for Brunei, ASEAN’s chair this year and the group’s Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi, also from Brunei, are scheduled to meet leaders of Myanmar’s military this week, the sources, who asked not to be identified, said.