Myanmar Junta FM informs neighbors of election plans: Thai FM | National

It has since launched a bloody crackdown on dissent, and as fighting devastates swathes of the country, plans for new elections that critics say will be neither free nor fair have been repeatedly delayed.

Junta-appointed Foreign Minister Than Swe met with diplomats from China, India, Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand for an “informal consultation,” Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura told reporters.

Myanmar has “set out very generally that progress is being made towards an election in 2025,” he said, adding that no details, including an exact date, had been discussed.

The talks in Bangkok were hosted by Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa and came a day before informal talks on Myanmar hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc.

ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, has made little progress in resolving the Myanmar crisis.

Thailand, which regularly hosts thousands of people fleeing the conflict, has held its own bilateral talks with Myanmar’s junta leaders.

In 2023, the then foreign minister also said he had briefly met with Suu Kyi, who has been in military custody since the coup.

The junta has repeatedly pushed back the schedule for new elections as it struggles to quell widespread resistance to its rule by ethnic rebel groups and the pro-democracy “People’s Defense Forces.”

In 2022, the junta-occupied electoral commission announced that Suu Kyi’s NLD would be dissolved for failing to re-register under a strict new electoral law drafted by the military.

China, the junta’s key ally, has grown increasingly alarmed by the conflict on its doorstep and in October called for “reconciliation led by all the people of Myanmar.”

Earlier this year, the foreign minister said Beijing supported the junta’s plans for elections.

The United States has said any elections under the junta would be a “sham election,” while analysts say elections would be targeted by opponents of the military and trigger further bloodshed.