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
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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
EU assembly weighs freezing US trade deal over Trump’s Greenland threats
- Signatories were mainly fellow members of Clausen’s Left Group, but also included center-left Social Democrats and Greens
- Greens lawmaker Anna Cavazzini said the only argument in favor of the deal was to bring stability
BRUSSELS: The European Parliament is considering putting on hold the European Union’s implementation of the trade deal struck with the United States in protest over threats by US President Donald Trump to seize Greenland.
The European Parliament has been debating legislative proposals to remove many of the EU’s import duties on US goods — the bulk of the trade deal with the US — and to continue zero duties for US lobsters, initially agreed with Trump in 2020.
It was due to set its position in votes on January 26-27, which the MEPs said should now be postponed.
Leading members of the cross-parliamentary trade committee met to discuss the issue on Wednesday morning and decide whether to postpone the vote. In the end, they took no decision and settled on reconvening next week.
A parliamentary source said left-leaning and centrist groups favored taking action, such as a postponement.
A group of 23 lawmakers also urged the EU assembly’s president Roberta Metsola on Wednesday to freeze work on the agreement as long as the US administration continued its threats to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
“If we go through and approve a deal that Trump has seen as a personal victory, while he makes claims for Greenland and refuses to rule out any manner in which to achieve this, it will be easily seen as rewarding him and his actions,” the letter drafted by Danish lawmaker Per Clausen said.
Signatories were mainly fellow members of Clausen’s Left Group, but also included center-left Social Democrats and Greens.
Greens lawmaker Anna Cavazzini said the only argument in favor of the deal was to bring stability.
“Trump’s actions show again and again that chaos is his only offer,” she said.
French lawmaker Valerie Hayer, head of the centrist Renew Europe group, said on Tuesday the EU should consider holding off a vote if Trump’s threats continued.
Many lawmakers have complained that the US trade deal is lopsided, with the EU required to cut most import duties while the US sticks to a broad rate of 15 percent.
However, freezing the deal risks angering Trump, which could lead to higher US tariffs. The Trump administration has also ruled out any concessions, such as cutting tariffs on spirits or steel, until the deal is in place.
