ASEAN envoy Theresa Lazaro completed a humanitarian visit to Myanmar after meeting its foreign minister. No meeting with detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi was announced. The talks addressed Myanmar’s place in the regional organisation, while the Philippine envoy sought greater access to communities displaced by the civil war.
Theresa Lazaro, Philippine foreign secretary and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations special envoy for Myanmar, completed a visit to the country on Thursday. She met Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe during the humanitarian mission. Myanmar’s foreign ministry said the discussions covered restoring the country’s original role and rights within the regional organisation, known as ASEAN.[1], [2]
Lazaro had spent Wednesday in eastern Myanmar’s Shan State overseeing humanitarian programmes for people displaced by the civil war, according to the Philippine foreign ministry. Manila has made humanitarian assistance and access to hard-to-reach communities a focus of the visit. The Philippines holds ASEAN’s rotating chair this year. The regional organisation excluded Myanmar’s leaders from its summits after the military coup in 2021.[1]
No meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s former democratic leader detained after the coup, was publicly announced. Myanmar’s authorities say the 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw. The Philippines requested access in April after the announced transfer from prison to house arrest, then renewed the request in August. Her son Kim Aris was allowed a twenty-minute consular telephone call with her last Thursday, their first spoken contact in more than half a decade.[1]
