Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai has defended informal regional peace talks with Myanmar being hosted by Thailand, saying the kingdom has been affected by the crisis in the neighbouring country and needs to take urgent action to help with peace efforts.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Bangkok Post before the meeting on Monday in the resort town of Pattaya, Mr Don said on Sunday the meeting will go ahead even though some other ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will not be attending.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, high-level representatives from Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, India, China, Brunei and Vietnam have confirmed they intend to come.
Mr Don admitted the meeting was called in a hurry to find ways to address Myanmar's crisis.
"Even though the government holds a caretaker role, we have to go ahead with the meeting. The meeting is not unprecedented. It is already our third meeting.
"This meeting will be linked with the Asean Foreign Ministers's Meeting [AMM] in July. We have a tight schedule," Mr Don said.
"We have little time so we had to call the meeting hastily to discuss the Myanmar issue. It is a follow-up to the 42nd Asean Summit and Related Meetings in Labuan Bajo of Indonesia last month."
He also stressed the meeting in Pattaya has nothing to do with the government's caretaker role, saying it is a follow-up mission, not a new one.
"What we have done is in the country's best interests because Thailand shares the longest border with Myanmar [about 2,400 kilometres]," he said, adding that problems in Myanmar have increased and they are different from what happened two years ago.
"We can no longer depend on a consensus alone,'' Mr Don said, referring to the official Asean peace initiative, known as the "five-point consensus" agreed upon by Asean members in Jakarta in 2021 to address Myanmar's crisis.
At last month's meeting in Indonesia, some Asean leaders agreed that Asean should re-engage with Myanmar, Mr Don said.
"As we share a border with Myanmar, Thailand is a stakeholder with interests [that could be affected by the situation in Myanmar]. The sooner the crisis in Myanmar ends, the better [for Thailand]," Mr Don said.
"Others [Asean countries] do not share a border like us. We want to see the Myanmar crisis end quickly. We must find ways to ease the crisis such as releasing detainees.
"It looks as if [the informal meeting] duplicates what is done by Asean. In fact, it is intended to complement it because we are working along the same lines as Asean," Mr Don said.
"Some asked why a caretaker government should deal with the matter. That is because it is about the country's interests.
"We cannot afford to stand idly by. No one knows how long it will take for the new government to take office," Mr Don said.
He also admitted that Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi was upset about Thailand's role in the issue.
But Mr Don said he explained to his Indonesian counterpart that Thailand's action was only meant to complement Asean's efforts to address Myanmar's crisis; it was not acting on behalf of the regional bloc.
"We have been on the receiving end of the fighting in Myanmar. We have to struggle with crimes, arms trafficking, and drug trade while other countries do not suffer like us," he said.
Thailand invited Myanmar's Foreign Minister Than Swe to the talks along with other Asean foreign ministers, sources told Reuters. Other Asean members have declined Thailand's invitation, including this year's chair, Indonesia, as well as Singapore, whose foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, on Friday said: "It would be premature to re-engage with the junta at a summit level or even at a foreign minister level."
Myanmar's generals have been barred for nearly two years from Asean's senior-level meetings for failing to honour an agreement to start talks with opponents linked to the ousted civilian government led by now-jailed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Critics said Thailand's initiative risks legitimising Myanmar's military government and is inappropriate because it is outside Asean's "five-point consensus".
Myanmar has been roiled by violence since a Feb 1, 2021 coup, with the military battling on multiple fronts to try to crush an armed pro-democracy resistance movement formed in response to the crackdown. The junta says it is fighting terrorists who aim to destroy the country.
