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UN Security Council to meet on Friday to discuss Myanmar crisis

ASEAN envoy to attend closed-door talks along with UN special envoy for Myanmar

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The UN Security Council will meet Friday with a minister from ASEAN chair Cambodia to discuss the chaotic situation in Myanmar, one year after a coup ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomatic sources said.

Cambodia currently heads the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and its ASEAN envoy to Myanmar, Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, will attend the closed-door talks along with United Nations special envoy for Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, the sources told AFP.

The minister is expected to report on the controversial visit to Myanmar in early January by Cambodia’s strongman ruler Hun Sen, who met with the junta in the first foreign leadership visit since the generals seized power last February.

ASEAN is divided over the thorny issue of Myanmar, and debate has swirled over how the regional bloc — often derided as a toothless talk shop — can help bring Myanmar out of the crisis.

Critics say Hun Sen’s visit risks legitimizing the junta. During his trip, he did not meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained after the coup and now faces criminal and corruption charges.

Myanmar has “all the ingredients for civil war,” Prak Sokhonn said this month.

ASEAN agreed in April to a “five-point consensus” aimed at reversing deteriorating conditions in Myanmar. The junta accepted the plan, but it has had little impact, and the military continues to suppress dissent — sometimes violently.

In a rare intervention Monday at the UN General Assembly, Myanmar’s ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who was sacked by the junta but remains in his UN position, urged the global body for “help and protection” for the country’s population.

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