By Panu Wongcha-um
BANGKOK, July 12 (Reuters) – Foreign ministers from the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN were told on Sunday by their Myanmar counterpart that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and would be looked after, ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar said.
Maria Theresa Lazaro, the Philippine foreign minister, has been seeking access to Suu Kyi, 81, who has been detained since her elected government was ousted in a 2021 military coup.
“My recollection of the statement of the Myanmar foreign minister on Aung San Suu Kyi is that she’s in good health and that the premise of how he said this is that she is a relative, she’s a sister and therefore we will take care of her,” Lazaro told a press conference.
Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year sentence, recently commuted by one-third, on a series of charges that her allies said were fabricated to keep her out of politics, including incitement, corruption, election fraud and violations of the state secrets law. She has denied wrongdoing.
FAILED PEACE EFFORT
The top diplomats of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in person with their Myanmar counterpart on Sunday for the first time since the coup, in an effort to kick-start a five-year-old peace initiative that has failed to end a civil war gripping the country.
The conflict has killed an estimated 100,000 people and displaced several million more.
Myanmar’s leadership has been banned from top-level ASEAN meetings since the military seized power because of their failure to implement a “five-point consensus” peace plan agreed with the bloc.
The country has since April been led by a nominally civilian government following an election earlier this year. Former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is now president and has sought to normalise relations with ASEAN.
Suu Kyi’s whereabouts are unknown, but Lazaro earlier said she had been transferred to a “designated location”, without elaborating.
Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said his Myanmar counterpart Tin Maung Swe had faced questions during Sunday’s informal meeting in Bangkok about the status of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
“We also made our comment that if the ASEAN special envoy could be given the opportunity to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, that would be even better so that we can be able to verify the claims that the foreign minister made,” he said, referring to her using a Myanmar honorific.
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um. Writing by Martin Petty.. Editing by Mark Potter)
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