Cambodia postpones first ASEAN meeting amid Myanmar disagreements

Cambodia on Wednesday postponed the first ASEAN meeting under its 2022 chairmanship, the government said, amid reports of differences among the bloc’s members over Prime Minister Hun Sen’s visit to Myanmar last week where he did not meet democracy leaders.

An in-person foreign ministers’ retreat, scheduled for next week in Siem Reap, was postponed indefinitely because some top diplomats from member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations had said they would find it difficult to travel, said Khieu Kanharith, the host country’s information minister.

“The ASEAN Foreign Ministers Retreat (AMM Retreat) initially scheduled on Jan 18-19, 2022 in Siem Reap province has been postponed,” he said in a statement on Facebook, without announcing a fresh date for the meeting.

The reason for the postponement is that “many ASEAN foreign have difficulties traveling to attend the meeting,” he added.

The postponement effectively delays the official endorsement of Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn as ASEAN’s new special envoy for Myanmar.

Divisions within ASEAN over Hun Sen’s trip to Naypyidaw and a potential invitation to the Myanmar junta’s foreign minister to attend the ASEAN diplomats’ retreat might be why some diplomats chose not to attend next week’s meeting, analysts said.

ASEAN states who cited travel difficulties were likely being polite instead of saying outright that they didn’t want to go to Siem Reap, according to Sophal Ear, a Cambodia expert at Arizona State University in the U.S.

“This is not officially a boycott, but [some members-states’ foreign ministers] came-up with some excuses as to why they cannot join the meeting.  … The chickens are coming home to roost, it’s karma for Cambodia’s ‘Cowboy Diplomacy,’” Ear, an associate dean and professor at the university’s Thunderbird School of Management in Phoenix, said.

“When you do things others don’t want you to do, they don’t come to your party and have excuses … Be ready for a long list of reasons for why someone cannot show up,” he added.

Another Southeast Asia analyst, Hunter Marston, said Cambodia’s chairmanship had got off to a “rocky start.”

“Seems internal divisions over the chair’s invitation to the Myanmar military-appointed Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin have created an impasse,” Marston, a doctoral student at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, said on Twitter.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES