Myanmar pressed for political reforms

The first ministerial meeting of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and mostly Asian nations on Myanmar also urged the junta to cooperate with Ban’s special envoy to resolve the nation’s political crisis.

Envoy Ibrahim Gambari has made four visits to the country since a bloody uprising a year ago but failed to restart a dialogue between detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta.

The talks Saturday underlined “the responsibility of the Myanmar government to demonstrate its stated commitment to cooperation with the good offices (of the secretary-general) through further tangible results,” Ban’s spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement.

The meeting of Ban’s so-called “group of friends on Myanmar” also wanted the generals to “respond more positively” to international demands for the release of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and a dialogue with the opposition, Montas said.

Ban chaired the informal talks Saturday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly amid little signs the military junta will embrace political reforms, one year after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed dismay that the military junta continued to defy international demands for a release of political prisoners, an end to repression of minority groups and national reconciliation.

“That degree of cooperation has not been forthcoming from the Burmese (Myanmar) regime and remains the fundamental tenet of the friends of the secretary general,” he said.

“The most important message today is that the people of Burma has not been forgotten by the international community and they remain high on the thoughts of many governments,” Miliband said.

U.N. based envoys of Ban’s “friends on Myanmar” group had met several times since the group’s inauguration in December last year.

The group comprises permanent Security Council members United States, Britain, France, Russia and China as well as Australia, European Union, India, Norway, Japan and South Korea as well as ASEAN states Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), attended as the group’s observer at the talks.

“What the group is trying to do is to make sure that it is going to lead to some true national reconciliation,” Surin told reporters.

The meeting came ahead of Ban’s planned visit to Myanmar by years end, amid expectations that the trip could result in a political breakthrough.

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