SOUTH EAST ASIA: Thai Prime Minister Mr Thaksin Shinawatra will push ASEAN leaders at a summit in Laos to address a lack of political reform in military-ruled Burma, officials said yesterday.
Mr Thaksin is due to have a working breakfast with Burma's new prime minister, Mr Soe Win, tomorrow, and wants Rangoon to brief the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the stuttering progress of its "road map to democracy".
"Prime Minister Thaksin will suggest at the summit that ASEAN leaders should have an informal discussion on Burma to learn about the latest situation there," government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said. "But that request would need to be agreed upon by Myanmar [ Burma]."
ASEAN has pinned its reform hopes on the democracy road map, which Western governments have dismissed as a sham, particularly while opposition leader and Nobel laureate Ms Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.
A draft summit communiqué suggests ASEAN will duck the issue, even though secretary general Ong Keng Yong had promised "a lot of hard questions" for Rangoon's reclusive generals.
"Thailand would like to see gradual development of democracy in Myanmar. We understand their constraints and we always give them moral support for their development to democracy," Mr Jakrapob said.
Mr Thaksin held an informal meeting with his Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts to discuss the violence in Muslim southern Thailand, which has claimed nearly 500 lives this year.
Bangkok's heavy-handed response, especially last month's Tak Bai incident in which 78 Muslim protesters died of suffocation in military custody, has angered ASEAN's Muslim members.