Malaysia will ask France to try to prevent the European Union from abandoning the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) scheduled for Vietnam in October, a report said Saturday.
"The process must be allowed to continue. We hope the summit will still go on," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.
Syed Hamid said Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would convey the message to French President Jacques Chirac when the two leaders meet in Paris later this month.
The process had proved to be mutually beneficial to both parties, he said, adding that he believed it would be unfortunate if the meeting were cancelled.
Some EU nations are opposed to military-ruled Myanmar's ASEM membership on the basis that it should lift restrictions on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a condition of being in the group.
The EU is one of the fiercest critics of Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country since 1962 and continues to keep democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. In contrast, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations has taken a much lower-profile stance in dealing with Myanmar, leading to accusations the group is soft on the issue.
An ASEM finance ministers' gathering in Brussels in July and a September meeting of the group's economy ministers in Rotterdam have been cancelled, casting doubt over the October summit.
Comments
Comments are closed.