Cambodia to work with junta, breaking ranks with Asean

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia will work with Myanmar’s military regime, the country’s premier said yesterday, breaking ranks with fellow Asean nations in the regional bloc.

Leaders in the 10-country body have struggled to handle Myanmar following February’s coup, with more than 1,300 people killed by security forces according to a local monitoring group.

The junta has refused to allow an Asean-appointed envoy to meet ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, earning military chief Min Aung Hlaing a snub from the bloc’s summit.

But Cambodian strongman Hun Sen vowed his country, which assumes the Asean chairmanship role next year under a rotating schedule, would work with Myanmar’s military leaders.

“Tomorrow, I will meet Myanmar’s foreign minister in the name of Cambodia. There is a big possibility that I will go to Naypyidaw to meet General Min Aung Hlaing to work with him,” he said in a speech.

“There is only one way. It’s to work with the ruler (of Myanmar).”

Hun Sen also said the junta chief had the right to attend Asean summits.

“If there is a meeting, we have to invite all... If it is the meeting of the leaders, we invite a leader,” he said.

“It has to be like this,” he added.

The 69-year-old premier is among the world’s longest-serving leaders, and critics said his administration maintained an iron-clad rule by jailing opposition activists and silencing dissent.

He is also regarded as a staunch ally of Beijing, meeting last month with China’s premier Li Keqiang by video conference.

In 2012, the last time Cambodia held the Asean chairmanship, the bloc deadlocked on the contentious South China Sea dispute — making it the first time in the body’s history that a joint communique was not issued.