Myanmar’s military-backed government has rejected the ASEAN’s renewed call for the unconditional release of detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and dismissed the need for the organization’s special envoy on Myanmar, the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing, the former army chief who had seized power in 2021 from Suu Kyi’s civilian government, has been trying to win political legitimacy since the takeover and resume relations with ASEAN.ASEAN came up with a peace plan for the Southeast Asian country in April 2021 to end hostilities and initiate dialogue among contending parties, to be facilitated by the special envoy.
Former Myanmar state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at the Columbia University in New York on Sept. 22, 2012.
Min Aung Hlaing has since been barred from attending top-level meetings for failing to comply with the plan.In an apparent effort to placate critics, the government allowed a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit 81-year-old Suu Kyi last week, the first known contact with an outside international independent humanitarian organization since her detention five years ago.
Suu Kyi is serving her sentence under house arrest at an undisclosed location in Naypyitaw, on charges that her supporters and rights groups have said are politically motivated.The current ASEAN chair, the Philippines, welcomed the meeting as a step toward dialogue and reconciliation, while urging greater access to political detainees and reiterating its call for Suu Kyi’s “complete and unconditional release.”Myanmar’s foreign ministry criticized the call.“Although the government has commuted her sentences based on humanitarian considerations, the matter of a full and unconditional release shall only be carried out in accordance with the law,” it said.“At present, the government, which emerged from the multiparty democratic elections reflecting the genuine will of the people, has assumed state responsibility,” it said.In a speech more than three months after being sworn in as president, Min Aung Hlaing dismissed the ASEAN’s peace plan, saying that some member states have discriminated against Myanmar and it would respond on a case-by-case basis.
