Southeast Asian foreign ministers are gathering for their first meeting this year under the regional bloc’s new chair, Malaysia, seeking a breakthrough over Myanmar’s drawn-out civil war and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Malaysia has appointed a new ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar to try and implement the regional bloc’s stalled peace plan for the war-torn country.

“Malaysia wants to know what Myanmar has in mind,” Mohamad Hasan told a news conference after a ministerial retreat on the island of Langkawi. Hasan said Myanmar – represented by a low-level official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after its ...

The Myanmar military seized power in February 2021 ... But we told them that election is not a priority at the moment," Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan told reporters after the meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers on the Malaysian island of Langkawi.

Myanmar's military government was on Sunday told by ASEAN foreign ministers to prioritize an end to the fighting in its country over the holding of an election this year, the bloc's chair Malaysia said.

ASEAN's fifth envoy to Myanmar, Tan Sri Othman Hashim, appointed during the bloc's meeting of foreign ministers.

“Malaysia wants to know what Myanmar has in mind,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan told a press conference after a ministerial retreat on the island of Langkawi. “We told them the election is not a priority. The priority now is to cease fire.

Despite Asean’s call to prioritise peace over a sham election, Myanmar’s military rulers appear bent on clinging to power no matter the cost.

The bloc says that any poll must be “inclusive,” but it has limited power to deter the junta from its election plans.

BANGKOK: A Myanmar junta air strike killed 28 people, including children, and wounded 25 at a temporary detention area in western Rakhine state, an ethnic minority armed group said on Sunday.

After three years of failed diplomacy, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has upped the ante and warned the military junta in Myanmar to end the civil war and allow the free flow of much-needed humanitarian aid.

Malaysian diplomat Othman Hashim faces the weary task of engaging the junta and persuading it to abide by a Five-Point Consensus ASEAN drew up after the coup.