MYANMAR presents a problem for Southeast Asian nations but the region has little leverage over the military regime, Singapore's prime minister told a regional security conference yesterday.
"Myanmar is a problem. It is a problem for Myanmar itself," Lee Hsien Loong said after delivering the keynote address to the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of analysts, defence and national security officials.
MYANMAR presents a problem for Southeast Asian nations but the region has little leverage over the military regime, Singapore's prime minister told a regional security conference yesterday.
"Myanmar is a problem. It is a problem for Myanmar itself," Lee Hsien Loong said after delivering the keynote address to the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of analysts, defence and national security officials.
"I think we have to acknowledge that our leverage on them is limited," he said "They want to be closed off from the rest of Asean."
Myanmar is one of 10 members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but it has embarrassed the regional bloc by refusing to introduce democratic reforms.
The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of national elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy.
A United Nations panel has found that Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's democracy icon, is being detained by the regime in violation of international law and called for her immediate freedom, according to the ruling released by her family's US lawyer on Thursday. AFP
