00:00Myanmar President Min Aung Leng has wrapped up his visit to Thailand as Bangkok pushes for closer engagement with Myanmar
00:07and a return to normalized relations with ASEAN.
00:10But with the civil conflict still raging across the country, there are questions over whether greater engagement with the military
00:18can lead to meaningful political progress.
00:21Lilian Phan from the Malaysian Advisory Group on Myanmar weighs in.
00:26You know, bilaterally, some countries pushing ahead with this, you know, much more engagement.
00:34Thailand is also, you know, sort of trying to, you know, make this bilateral positioning into more of an ASEAN
00:43position, or at least to encourage and be a bridge for the ASEAN engagement.
00:48I'm not sure, I think it's too early to see how much of an impact that's going to have, because
00:55I think that there were lots of questions as well.
00:58You know, first and foremost by many Myanmar stakeholders, political stakeholders about, you know, is this the right approach?
01:05I think many of them felt extremely excluded, even though there was, you know, a dialogue that happened, a meeting
01:12that happened in Thailand, you know, between the Thai foreign minister, a Philippine special envoy, and a few leaders.
01:19It was not an inclusive meeting, and there were many leaders who felt very excluded from that, who are part
01:26of the resistance.
01:27And I think that, you know, while it's important to keep dialogue going in any form, I also think that,
01:35you know, we shouldn't be overstating what those smaller meetings actually mean for the larger conflict.
01:43And I do think that there are a lot of questions about ASEAN's credibility.
01:49I think that there's, you know, questions about the fact that the reality on the ground hasn't changed, you know,
01:55the fact that the violence is still continuing.
01:59What then would have to change on the ground for Myanmar's military leadership to move towards normalizing relations with ASEAN?
02:06Lillian says that would first require an end to attacks on civilians, along with a genuine effort to engage with
02:13the wider resistance.
02:16The first thing that needs to happen is NAPIDO needs to genuinely stop targeting civilians.
02:25They need to show the goodwill if they are, in fact, serious about, you know, engaging with the groups who
02:33are, you know, in contestation with them.
02:36And it shouldn't just be, you know, they already have a process internally where they're talking to some armed groups.
02:42But, you know, Myanmar is very complex. It is not just one group or two groups.
02:45It is multiple groups. And there are some groups who have been in an agreement with, you know, the military
02:52for many years now and never broke that agreement.
02:55So they're starting with that and trying to bring more groups into that.
02:58But there are lots of groups who are not going to feel comfortable going into that agreement.
03:02And those are some of, in fact, the largest groups and the most important armed groups in the country now.
03:07I would say it's hard to find a group that is trusted by both sides equally, but it should be
03:12a group that both sides are comfortable with.
03:14And I think that the fact that a lot of the other resistance stakeholders have been comfortable with ASEAN,
03:21I think that that should be a starting point for the military to say, well, ASEAN can actually play a
03:28constructive role.
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