Jakarta. Indonesia said Monday that ASEAN has its governing principles, namely the five-point consensus and past summit decisions, on getting member state Myanmar out of its political turmoil, as the bloc’s chair skipped Thailand’s informal talks on Myanmar.

“If an engagement only involves one party, that is against the five-point consensus,” I Gede Ngurah Swajaya, the special advisor to the foreign affairs minister for regional diplomacy, told reporters in Jakarta on Monday.

 “If a country makes its own initiative, let them be. That is their country’s right. But if we speak of ASEAN, we have our rules of games that we must pay attention to, namely the five-point consensus and the past summits’ decisions,” Ngurah said.

The Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry announced over the weekend that the informal Myanmar talks would not take place within ASEAN’s framework. However, Monday's meeting aims to support ASEAN’s efforts to resolve the situation in Myanmar. High-level representatives from Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, China, Brunei, and Vietnam were expected to join the talks, according to the Thai government press release. 

News outlet Reuters earlier reported that Thailand's caretaker government was proposing to “fully re-engage” Myanmar’s military rulers with the ASEAN meeting and that Myanmar’s junta-appointed Foreign Minister Than Swe is to attend the talks.

Ngurah said Indonesia had received the invite to the talks in Thailand, but chose not to attend. According to Ngurah, the bloc’s decision to only allow Myanmar to send a non-political representation at the summits and foreign ministerial meetings still stand.

“At the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo [on May], ASEAN leaders reiterated their commitment to making the five-point consensus as their main reference to help Myanmar find a Myanmar-led, Myanmar-owned solution,” Ngurah said.

“An inclusive and genuine dialogue is the only way to create sustainable and durable peace in Myanmar,” Ngurah said.

The five-point peace plan calls for constructive dialogue among all parties concerned and immediate cessation of violence, among others. 

The diplomat added that ASEAN chair Indonesia has made more than 75 engagements with almost all stakeholders in Myanmar, including the military junta State Administration Council (SAC), over the past 5 months. Some of the engagements took place after the Labuan Bajo summit.

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