Myanmar foreign minister should join ASEAN talks: Thailand

Thailand's foreign minister said Myanmar's foreign minister should be allowed to take part in ASEAN foreign minister meetings, as Bangkok pushes for more engagement with Myanmar before a regional leaders' summit in the Philippines.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after visiting Myanmar that his meetings with President Min Aung Hlaing and others showed “a desire on the part of Myanmar to engage, to return to ASEAN”. He said there had been no discussion of specific steps.

Myanmar has been excluded from high-level meetings of the 11-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations since the 2021 military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government and led to an ongoing civil war.

“For Thailand, we believe that the next step is to have the foreign minister of Myanmar participate in the ASEAN meetings at the level of foreign minister,” Sihasak told reporters. ASEAN leaders are due to meet in the Philippines from November 15.

Sihasak said he also raised water pollution affecting tributaries of the Mekong River and spillover violence into Thailand. He said a working group on water pollution would meet later this month.

Thai authorities in the north suspended tap water production last week after arsenic at a waterworks intake was found to be 30 times above the safety standard. The government said a later field sample from the nearby Sai River measured arsenic at 25 times the safety standard, and more than a dozen villages were affected. Thai officials have previously linked the toxic sediment to wastewater from mining activity upstream in Myanmar.