ASEAN relieved as Myanmar junta skips 2006 chair
Army-ruled Myanmar will skip its turn as ASEAN chairman in 2006, defusing a simmering row between the southeast Asian bloc and the West over the junta’s lack of democratic reform and its detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. “We agreed that once Myanmar is ready to take its turn to be the ASEAN chair, it can do so,” Lao Foreign Minister Somsavat Lengsavad said on Tuesday, reading out a joint statement by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Full Story