Thailand hosted talks on Monday aimed at reengaging with Myanmar’s regime leaders in an initiative that has sown division among regional countries and attracted condemnation from Myanmar democracy forces.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai last week invited foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including the foreign minister of Myanmar’s junta, to prepare the way to “fully reengage Myanmar at the leaders’ level”.
The Myanmar regime’s top leaders and its foreign minister have been excluded from high-level meetings of ASEAN since late 2021, following the junta’s failure to honor the bloc’s plan to restore peace in the country, which has been in turmoil since the military staged a coup early that year.
Thailand’s outgoing government has come under fire for organizing the informal talks and inviting the junta’s foreign minister.
Monday’s talks in the resort town of Pattaya were shunned by key regional countries Indonesia—the current ASEAN chair—Singapore and Malaysia, causing division among the regional bloc’s member states. Indonesia stated there was no consensus among ASEAN members to reengage with the regime leaders, while Singapore said it would be premature to reengage with the junta at the summit level. The meeting was also condemned by Myanmar’s parallel civilian government, the National Unity Government, as well as more than 300 civil society organizations and regional lawmakers as a blatant breach of ASEAN’s consensus agreement not to invite junta representatives to high-level meetings.
On Tuesday, the Myanmar regime said its Foreign Minister Than Swe attended the informal talks on Monday at the invitation of Don. It said the meeting was joined by foreign ministers, special envoys, ambassadors and representatives from ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines and neighboring countries China and India to “exchange views on matters related to the situation in Myanmar.”
Cambodia sent a junior Foreign Ministry official while Myanmar junta supporter China dispatched Deng Xijun, its special envoy for Asian affairs.
Despite the division and criticism, the outgoing Thai government defended the talks. Outgoing Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters the talks were “just [a] meeting and didn’t [agree] on anything.”
He said direct talks were necessary to protect his country, as Thailand has suffered more than others in the region due to its land border with Myanmar. “That is why the talks are necessary. It is not about taking sides,” he said.
The current Thai government has been accused of being too close to the regime, and of offering only a muted response to its atrocities. Myanmar is a source of border trade, migrant labor and natural gas for Thailand.
Despite Bangkok’s defense of the meeting, questions have been raised as to why Thailand made the hurried decision to hold talks now, especially with a new government expected to take over in August after progressive and populist parties defeated their military-backed rivals in the country’s recent election.
Igor Blazevic, a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre, said the Thai caretaker government tried to hold the meeting before the transfer of power in Thailand in an attempt to advance the “creeping legitimization of the illegal and shunned junta” in a way that will make it hard for the next civilian government to change course.
“The Thai civilian government will not be able to put much of its policy in place, if it comes to power, because Laos will hold Track 1.5 sometime in August or September and will take over [the] initiative as upcoming ASEAN chair,” he said, referring to a new round of informal meetings on Myanmar that was initiated by Thailand in March this year.
Laos was among the ASEAN countries that joined Monday’s talks in Pattaya.
Following the meeting, Thai prospective prime minister and Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat on Tuesday reaffirmed his support for ASEAN-led solutions for Myanmar.
