ASEAN could bar Myanmar general from leaders’ summit

Regional envoy says the military has made ‘no progress’ on the peace plan agreed in April, as Malaysia says it could open dialogue with shadow administration.

Countries from Southeast Asia are discussing not inviting the head of Myanmar’s military regime to their leaders’ summit later this month, after the generals failed to make progress on an agreed road map to restore peace after their February coup plunged the country into chaos, a regional envoy has said.

The military’s failure to act on a five-point plan it agreed to in April with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was “tantamount to backtracking”, Erywan Yusof, the group’s special envoy to Myanmar, told a news conference on Wednesday.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power on February 1, ending 10 years of tentative steps towards democracy and sparking widespread protests and a mass movement of civil disobedience.