Foreign Ministers Pressure Myanmar

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Foreign ministers pressure Myanmar on human rights

 .c Kyodo News Service    

MANILA, July 28 (Kyodo) - By: Maria Teresa Villanueva-Cerojano Myanmar came
under intense pressure Tuesday from developed countries' foreign ministers,
who sought a separate meeting with Myanmar Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw on the
sidelines of the ASEAN talks in Manila to express concern over human rights in
Myanmar. 

The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), Japan,
South Korea, the United States and New Zealand pressed Myanmar to allow Nobel
Peace Prize-winning pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi freedom of movement,
several ministers said. 

''Aung San Suu Kyi should be able to travel freely in her own country and we
hope very much that that will indeed happen,'' U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright told reporters following a meeting with Ohn Gyaw. 

The countries at the meeting ''made it quite clear to the Burmese (Myanmar)
authorities that there needs to be dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi, the
leader of the NLD (National League for Democracy), and the authorities,'' she
said. 

Albright said they were particularly concerned over Suu Kyi's health. Suu Kyi
had been holed up in her car some 32 kilometers west of Yangon for five days
due to the junta's refusal to allow her to travel to meet her supporters. 

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Don McKinnon said the countries at the meeting
had sought separate dialogue with Ohn Gyaw because they placed great
importance on finding a way forward, although the subject had been discussed
at the formal sessions of the security forum of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

''Ohn Gyaw has undertaken to report urgently to his government, and has said
he will report back to the group through myself,'' McKinnon said. 

Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, the EU's top representative to
the ASEAN meetings, told a press conference the EU was concerned about ''the
deterioration of the situation in Myanmar,'' and found the blockade of Suu
Kyi's car ''absolutely unbearable.'' 

During the meeting with Ohn Gyaw, the foreign ministers stressed a need for
results and immediate access to Suu Kyi, he said. It was agreed that U.S. and
Japanese ambassadors should have immediate access to Suu Kyi. 

At ASEAN's bilateral meeting with the EU also Tuesday, the question of
Myanmar's status in the ASEAN-EU cooperation framework remained a sore point. 

ASEAN, led by Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, called on the EU to
exercise full efforts to find a solution to their dispute over the membership
of Myanmar in the ASEAN-EU joint cooperation committee. 

Surin also urged European financial institutions to assist in providing
flexible arrangements in order to facilitate business transactions with ASEAN
during its economic difficulties. 

''If we are to advance our relations, we should exercise our full efforts to
break the impasse and find a practical and acceptable solution to the
problem,'' Surin said in his speech at the meeting of the nine ASEAN countries
and the EU. 

He said a practical way to bring further progress to ASEAN-EU relations is to
''take into consideration the value and importance of overall relations while
carefully managing the differences and to actively pursue the positive aspects
of our cooperation.'' 

But Schuessel said the EU's concerns on human rights in Myanmar ''have
unfortunately not yet been dissipated.'' 

''The EU has to maintain therefore, for the time being, its common position on
Burma/Myanmar,'' Schuessel said in his statement at the meeting. 

Although the EU remained committed to resolving the status of Myanmar in the
ASEAN-EU framework, ''for our meeting today I would pledge to concentrate on
the wider perspectives of the EU-ASEAN relationship,'' he said. 

ASEAN and the EU had disagreed over Myanmar's status in the ASEAN-EU joint
committee, with the EU insisting that Myanmar and Laos, ASEAN's newest
members, undergo an application process before they could sit with the rest of
ASEAN in the meeting. 

ASEAN said that condition was not applied to Vietnam when it became an ASEAN
member. 

The joint committee's meeting scheduled last November was postponed after the
EU insisted that Myanmar be allowed to sit in the meeting but without its
flag, name plate and other courtesies accorded other ASEAN members. 

Surin gave the EU a proposal Tuesday on how to resolve the row but the issue
is still subject to negotiations, Thai officials said. Both sides refused to
give details. 

AP-NY-07-28-98 0957EDT