Myanmar shadow govt raises alarm after junta meets ASEAN members

Myanmar’s shadow government on Friday urged ASEAN not to waver from its policy of excluding the country’s military leaders from its gatherings after Thailand hosted junta ministers in informal talks with other Southeast Asian officials.
A Cambodian official said, government ministers of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam met with junta representatives in Bangkok on Thursday to “find pathways towards a return to normalcy”, as violence and political and economic chaos persist in Myanmar after last year’s coup.
But key members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – and the most vocal critics of the junta – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines declined invitations to the meeting.
According to a statement from spokesperson Kyaw Zaw, Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) said it hoped ASEAN would continue to follow its “standing policy on maintaining non-political representation to the summits and the foreign ministers’ meeting.”