Opponents of Myanmar’s junta say they have lost faith in Southeast Asian efforts to end the crisis in the country, as two regional envoys met the military ruler Min Aung Hlaing in the capital Naypyitaw.
Moe Zaw Oo, a deputy foreign minister in a parallel government that the junta has declared treasonous said expressed no confidence in ASEAN’s efforts, stating that all their hopes were gone.
Moe Zaw Oo was speaking in a streamed news conference that was disrupted across Myanmar by internet outages.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has led the main international diplomatic effort to find a way out of the crisis in Myanmar, a country in turmoil since the military’s Feb. 1 overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.
The junta leader Min Aung Hlaing met on Friday with ASEAN Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi and Erywan Yusof, the second minister for foreign affairs for ASEAN chair Brunei, army-run Myawaddy TV reported.
It said the meeting discussed Myanmar cooperating on humanitarian issues, holding an election once the country was stable, and what it said were irregularities in last year’s election, which led to the military intervention.
The military, which ruled Myanmar from 1962 to 2011, had promised to return democracy within two years.
The visit was part of a five-point consensus reached at a meeting in Jakarta of the bloc’s leaders late in April, which was attended by Min Aung Hlaing and celebrated by ASEAN as a breakthrough.
ASEAN has yet to announce the visit and it was not immediately clear if the envoys planned to meet opponents of the military or other stakeholders.
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