VIENTIANE: The foreign ministers of Russia and China will meet on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers talks in Laos on Thursday, according to a schedule seen by AFP.
The three-day meeting of the 10-member ASEAN bloc started in the capital Vientiane on Thursday, with tensions in the South China Sea and the conflict in Myanmar high on the agenda.
Sergei Lavrov will meet Wang Yi at 6 p.m. local time (1100 GMT) for a 40-minute “ministerial meeting,” according to the schedule.
Both men have already arrived in Vientiane, journalists said, to attend the ASEAN talks as observers along with foreign ministers from the United Kingdom and Canada.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Vientiane on Thursday and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to attend.
ASEAN ministers were thrashing out a common position on the civil war raging in member state Myanmar on Thursday, a Southeast Asian diplomat at the talks said.
“Myanmar is not resolved yet but we’re almost there,” the source said, requesting anonymity in order to speak to the media.
A draft ASEAN communique seen by AFP said ministers “strongly condemned” the continued violence unleashed by the military’s coup in 2021 that has plunged the country into turmoil.
The junta is struggling to crush armed opposition to its coup and has been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings over its crackdown on dissent.
It had previously refused to send “non-political representatives” to attend high-level ASEAN meetings but two senior bureaucrats are representing Myanmar at the talks in Vientiane.
The military’s readiness to re-engage diplomatically was a sign of its “weakened position,” the diplomatic source told AFP.
An ethnic minority armed group claimed on Thursday its fighters had captured a town and a military regional command in northern Shan state, although the junta said it was still in control.
Indonesia’s foreign minister slammed on Thursday the Myanmar junta’s unwillingness to engage with a regional peace plan to resolve the crisis sparked by its coup.
Retno Marsudi made the remarks after meeting her Singaporean counterpart on the sidelines of the Vientiane meeting.
Weeks after it seized power, the junta agreed to a five-point peace plan with ASEAN that it has since ignored as it wages a crackdown on dissent and battles armed opposition to its rule.
“We shared the same view on the lack of commitment of Myanmar military junta to implement the 5PC (five point consensus),” Marsudi wrote on social media platform X.
A series of clashes between Philippine and Chinese vessels at flashpoint reefs in the South China Sea in recent months is also on the ASEAN agenda, the diplomatic source said.
Beijing claims the waterway, through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually, almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
A Filipino sailor lost a thumb in a June 17 confrontation when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops on a remote outpost.
The source said the Philippines was trying to insert a mention of injuries to its people in the joint communique, expected later Thursday.
Blinken is also expected to “discuss the importance of adherence to international law in the South China Sea” when he arrives in Laos, according to the US State Department.
Russia, China FMs to meet as ASEAN talks get underway in Laos
https://arab.news/z342x
Russia, China FMs to meet as ASEAN talks get underway in Laos
- ASEAN ministers thrashing out a common position on the civil war raging in member state Myanmar on Thursday
Top UN court to hear Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar
THE HAGUE: Did Myanmar commit genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority? That’s what judges at the International Court of Justice will weigh during three weeks of hearings starting Monday.
The Gambia brought the case accusing Myanmar of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention during a crackdown in 2017.
Legal experts are watching closely as it could give clues for how the court will handle similar accusations against Israel over its military campaign in Gaza, a case brought to the ICJ by South Africa.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled violence by the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias, escaping to neighboring Bangladesh and bringing harrowing accounts of mass rape, arson and murder.
Today, 1.17 million Rohingya live crammed into dilapidated camps spread over 8,000 acres in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
From there, mother-of-two Janifa Begum told AFP: “I want to see whether the suffering we endured is reflected during the hearing.”
“We want justice and peace,” said the 37-year-old.
’Senseless killings’
The Gambia, a Muslim-majority country in West Africa, brought the case in 2019 to the ICJ, which rules in disputes between states.
Under the Genocide Convention, any country can file a case at the ICJ against any other it believes is in breach of the treaty.
In December 2019, lawyers for the African nation presented evidence of what they said were “senseless killings... acts of barbarity that continue to shock our collective conscience.”
In a landmark moment at the Peace Palace courthouse in The Hague, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi appeared herself to defend her country.
She dismissed Banjul’s argument as a “misleading and incomplete factual picture” of what she said was an “internal armed conflict.”
The former democracy icon warned that the genocide case at the ICJ risked reigniting the crisis, which she said was a response to attacks by Rohingya militants.
Myanmar has always maintained the crackdown by its armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, was justified to root out Rohingya insurgents after a series of attacks left a dozen security personnel dead.
‘Physical destruction’
The ICJ initially sided with The Gambia, which had asked judges for “provisional measures” to halt the violence while the case was being considered.
The court in 2020 said Myanmar must take “all measures within its power” to halt any acts prohibited in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
These acts included “killing members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The United States officially declared that the violence amounted to genocide in 2022, three years after a UN team said Myanmar harbored “genocidal intent” toward the Rohingya.
The hearings, which wrap up on January 30, represent the heart of the case.
The court had already thrown out a 2022 Myanmar challenge to its jurisdiction, so judges believe they have the power to rule on the genocide issue.
A final decision could take months or even years and while the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling in favor of The Gambia would heap more political pressure on Myanmar.
Suu Kyi will not be revisiting the Peace Palace. She has been detained since a 2021 coup, on charges rights groups say were politically motivated.
The ICJ is not the only court looking into possible genocide against the Rohingya.
The International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, is investigating military chief Min Aung Hlaing for suspected crimes against humanity.
Another case is being heard in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the idea that some crimes are so heinous they can be heard in any court.
