ASEAN members to hold emergency talks in Jakarta to discuss strife-torn Myanmar

Southeast Asian foreign ministers will be holding an emergency meeting to discuss conflict-ridden Myanmar in Jakarta next week, ahead of November’s ASEAN leaders’ summit, sources said on October 22.

According to a local monitoring group, since the Myanmar military's coup in February of last year, there have been over 2,300 deaths as a result of the military's violent crackdown on the opposition.

Ineffective attempts to resolve the problem have been led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is frustrated by rising human rights abuses such as the execution of political detainees and a recent airstrike on a school.

A five-point plan from April of last year that demanded a stop to violence, more humanitarian aid, as well as communication between the military and the anti-coup movement, has made little headway.

A meeting was planned on October 20 at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, according to a representative of the Indonesian foreign ministry.

The discussion is anticipated to assess the plan's development.

Meanwhile, an official stated that it would not be a simple process to suspend Myanmar's ASEAN membership.

Another diplomatic source told AFP that the ten-nation bloc's leaders' ability to resolve an emergency crisis under article seven of the ASEAN charter would serve as the foundation for action.

Possible solutions, according to analyst Aaron Connelly of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, were a de facto suspension and increasing the frequency of meetings to which junta leaders were not invited.