BANGKOK: Myanmar\u2019s ex-junta chief Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Bangkok Thursday for his first visit to Thailand as civilian leader, as he seeks a return to the diplomatic fold for his pariah state.<\/p>\n
As a general, he led a 2021 military coup that ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a civil war estimated to have killed more than 100,000 people on all sides.<\/p>\n
He was installed as Myanmar\u2019s president in April following stage-managed elections that democracy watchdogs and Western nations called a sham intended to launder the junta\u2019s image.<\/p>\n
Neighboring Thailand has since been leading an effort to normalize relations with Myanmar, both bilaterally and through the 11-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).<\/p>\n
The bloc has excluded Myanmar\u2019s leadership from high-level summits since the putsch, but its foreign minister attended an informal meeting with his regional counterparts last month in Bangkok.<\/p>\n
And Min Aung Hlaing has been on a diplomatic drive since swapping his military uniform for civilian dress, visiting India, key ally China, and ASEAN member Laos in turn.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to his Bangkok trip, Suu Kyi \u2014 who remains under house arrest \u2014 was allowed to meet a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday, the first time she has been seen meeting a foreign official since her ouster.<\/p>\n
If Myanmar was invited back to ASEAN, it would open \u201ca pathway for normalization of relations with others, including western countries that have remained opposed to the military regime,\u201d said Myanmar specialist Morgan Michaels.<\/p>\n
But it had already secured recognition from India, China, Russia and Thailand, making restored ties with the regional grouping a \u201cnice to have\u201d rather than essential, he said.<\/p>\n
Independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson told AFP that Myanmar\u2019s campaign for re-entry into ASEAN was a matter of \u201cpure status\u201d for Min Aung Hlaing.<\/p>\n
Myanmar\u2019s leaders have refused to buy into the bloc\u2019s so-called \u201cfive-point consensus\u201d to end hostilities through dialogue with all sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to be seen as a responsible member of ASEAN in one way, then paradoxically to totally reject the five-point consensus,\u201d said Mathieson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BANGKOK: Myanmar\u2019s ex-junta chief Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Bangkok Thursday for his first visit to Thailand as civilian leader, as he seeks a return to the diplomatic fold for his pariah state. As a general, he led a 2021 military coup that ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a civil war estimated …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101355,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101339\/revisions\/101355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}