Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he held “frank” talks with Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, as the leader of a reviled military seeks to emerge from the diplomatic deep freeze.
Myanmar has been cut out from major Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meetings since October 2021 after the junta ignored a so-called five-point plan agreed with the bloc to end bloodshed in the wake of a coup months earlier.
Over recent weeks, Min Aung Hlaing, whose military no longer controls much of a country sunk deep into civil war, has been accused of allowing air strikes and blocking aid in the aftermath of the devastating Sagaing earthquake that has killed more than 3,600 people so far.
The meeting late on Thursday capped a whirlwind week of diplomacy for Anwar, who hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kuala Lumpur, and then flew to Bangkok to meet his Thai counterpart and a junta chief wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Xi’s three-day visit was a win for Malaysia and a chance for Anwar to burnish his credentials as a statesman in a time of crisis for global trade and geopolitics, experts said.
But others raised concerns that the country has made itself a target for further trade retaliation from the White House by being seen as too close to China.
