Associated Press

Vientiane, July 26:

Military-ruled Myanmar agreed today to relinquish its scheduled chairmanship of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year to avoid a damaging Western boycott of the group’s meetings, diplomats said. The US and European Union had demanded that Myanmar either move toward democracy and release pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi or forfeit its turn at the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN in late 2006. Foreign ministers from Myanmar and the other ASEAN countries agreed during their retreat today

in the Laotian capital to defer Myanmar’s chairmanship, a joint ministerial statement said. The post will go instead to the next-in-line Philippines, that country’s foreign minister, Alberto Romulo, told a news conference. The ASEAN statement said the group was informed by Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win that his government has “decided to relinquish its turn to be the chair of ASEAN in 2006 because it would want to focus its attention on the ongoing national reconciliation and democratization process.”

The statement said Nyan Win explained to his counterparts that “2006 will be a critical year and that the government of Myanmar wants to give full attention to that problem.” “We agreed that once Myanmar is ready to take its turn to be the ASEAN chair, it can do so. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the government of Myanmar for not allowing its national reconciliation to affect ASEAN’s solidarity and cohesiveness,” the statement said.

“The government of Myanmar has shown its commitment to the well-being of ASEAN,” the statement said. The issue came to a head in Laos this week during the group’s annual ministerial meeting.