အခုတစ္မ်ိဳး ေတာ္ၾကာတစ္မ်ိဳး တက္လည္းတက္ႏိုင္တဲ့ အာဆီယံရယ္ (ကိုအာၾကီး လို႕ပဲေခၚခြင့္ျပဳ ပါေတာ့လားဗ်ာ..။

Southeast Asian leaders on Monday abruptly canceled a scheduled address by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Myanmar, after the military-ruled country objected.

"It is a very difficult matter. It is a difficult problem for Myanmar," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the chairman of ASEAN, told reporters, after reading out the statement.

Lee had invited Gambari to address the East Asian Summit on Wednesday about the progress he has made in his meetings with Myanmar's junta in recent weeks. The summit brings together the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and six others: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

But during a dinner meeting of ASEAN leaders, Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein insisted that Gambari should only report to the U.N. and not to ASEAN or the East Asia Summit, said Lee.

In view of Myanmar's position, Gambari "will not brief the ASEAN or the East Asia Summit leaders," Lee said. "The ASEAN leaders agreed that ASEAN would respect Myanmar's wishes and make way for Myanmar to deal directly with the U.N. and the international community on its own."

Lee said Singapore would instead facilitate meetings between Gambari and individual countries.

The leaders took several hours to draft the joint statement over dinner. They could be heard squabbling over the wording until just before midnight as the microphone at a nearby podium was inadvertently turned on.

Diplomats said the objection to Gambari's address was not only from Myanmar but from other countries as well, notably Malaysia and Indonesia, who felt that it would amount to interference.

Gambari began pushing Myanmar's junta to restart political reconciliation with Suu Kyi after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in September that left at least 15 people dead.

source: AFP