ASEAN outreach may give Myanmar leaders legitimacy without results

July 13: ASEAN's re-engagement with Myanmar runs the risk of providing legitimacy to the military-led government and undermining the regional group's own plan to end violence in the war-torn country, analysts said.

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met Myanmar's top diplomat at an informal gathering in Bangkok on Sunday, the first such in-person meeting since the military's 2021 coup and subsequent conflict led to the junta being barred from the bloc's summits.

Officials described Sunday's meeting as an opportunity for Myanmar to brief its neighbours on conditions inside the country, but Richard Horsey, senior Asia adviser at Crisis Group, said the risk was that the meeting was a step in normalising political engagement before any change had been achieved.�" REUTERS