Myanmar pressured to commit to reforms

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Southeast Asian nations on Friday demanded that military-ruled Myanmar speed democratic reforms and free the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, in the strongest display yet of their growing frustration with the junta.

Myanmar has pledged to allow democracy, under strong pressure from its neighbors as well as the U.S. and other Western powers, but has so far failed to deliver.

Foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations made clear their exasperation with fellow member Myanmar at their annual Asian conference in Kuala Lumpur, said host Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar.

“I don’t think any single country in ASEAN does not feel impatient and does not feel uncomfortable, because it does create problems and difficulties for us,” Syed Hamid said.

Myanmar needs “to be more responsive to the wishes of the international community,” he said.

ASEAN members have become increasingly critical of Myanmar in public, despite the bloc’s traditional policy of noninterference in each other’s internal affairs.

Myanmar’s junta seized power in 1988. It called elections in 1990, but when Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide, the military refused to hand over power.