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Dialogue with Suu Kyi ‘not impossible’, says Myanmar junta

#Dialogue #Suu #Kyi #impossible #Myanmar #junta

A dialogue between Myanmar’s junta and ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end the bloody crisis sparked by the ouster of her government last year is “not impossible,” a junta spokesman told AFP on Friday.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in chaos since the coup, with renewed fighting with ethnic rebel groups, dozens of “People’s Defense Forces” springing up to fight the junta and the economy.

Suu Kyi, 77, has been kept virtually incommunicado by the military and was recently transferred from house arrest to solitary confinement while facing multiple trials that could sentence her to more than 150 years in prison.

“There is nothing impossible in politics,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP when asked if the junta could engage in dialogue with Suu Kyi to resolve the turmoil.

“We cannot say that (negotiations with Suu Kyi) are impossible.”

“Several countries” had pushed to start a dialogue with the Nobel laureate, he said, without giving details.

Diplomatic efforts led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, have so far failed to stop the bloodshed.

Last year the bloc agreed to a “five-point consensus” calling for an end to the violence and constructive dialogue, but the junta has largely ignored it.

ASEAN envoy and Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn arrived in Myanmar on Wednesday for his second visit to launch dialogue between the junta and those opposed to its rule.

He met with junta chief Min Aung Hlaing on Thursday and members of several political parties on Friday in the military-built capital Naypyidaw, a junta spokesman said.

The junta has said he is not allowed to visit Suu Kyi.

“We did what she asked for in terms of her health and her living situation,” Zaw Min Tun said of Suu Kyi’s new living conditions in prison.

Fighting continues across much of the country, and local media reports of killings and arson attacks by junta forces fighting to crush opposition to the coup.

The United Nations announced in May that almost 700,000 people have had to flee their homes since the coup.

On Thursday, Thailand scrambled F-16 fighter jets after a Myanmar jet involved in clashes with anti-coup militants near its border violated its airspace, officials said.

China’s foreign minister was due to land in Myanmar on Friday for a regional meeting in what will be Beijing’s highest-profile visit to Myanmar since the coup.

It is unclear whether a meeting between Wang Yi and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing will take place, a junta spokesman said.

China is a major arms supplier and ally of the junta, and has refused to call the military’s takeover a “coup”.

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