Myanmar's military government has informed host country Cambodia that it will not participate in a two-day summit involving leaders of Asia and Europe to be held virtually from Thursday, Asean sources said Wednesday.
The sources said Myanmar was told it could only send a "nonpolitical representative" to take part in the Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM, after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations excluded junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing over the country's post-coup political turmoil.
Myanmar replied that it would merely send a technical team to observe the discussions in that case, they said.
It would be the third time in recent weeks for Myanmar to boycott Asean-related summits, including last month's Asean Summit hosted by Brunei and an Asean-China Commemorative Summit hosted by China on Monday.
International concerns have been raised after Myanmar's military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February and harshly cracked down on protesters.
Some Asean members have lambasted the junta for not cooperating with Asean's efforts to mediate dialogue between all sides in conflict.
ASEM involves 51 countries from across Europe and Asia -- 30 from Europe and 21 from Asia -- which collectively account for 60% of the global population as well as the same percentage of the global economy and international trade.
Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
