Myanmar junta says UN needs ‘new approach’ to solve post-coup crisis

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: The United Nations needs to "review its approach" to solving Myanmar’s bloody post-coup crisis, the junta’s foreign minister told the world body’s special envoy during her first visit to the country on Wednesday.

Myanmar has been embroiled in turmoil since the military seized power in February last year, prompting fierce resistance and violence across swathes of the country. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis led by the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc have made little headway, with the generals refusing to engage with opponents.

In his meeting with UN envoy Noeleen Heyzer on Wednesday the junta’s foreign affairs minister called on the world body to "constructively and pragmatically review its approach in its cooperation with Myanmar", the foreign ministry said. Heyzer also met with junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and called for an immediate end to violence and the release of all political prisoners, her office said in a statement.

It said she had raised a request to meet ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the military’s coup and on Monday received another prison term in a secretive junta court.

More than 2,200 people have been killed and more than 15,000 arrested in the military’s crackdown on dissent since last February, according to a local rights group. Suu Kyi faces decades in prison if convicted on a clutch of charges in the junta court. Hit by western sanctions and isolated on the world stage, the junta has previously accused the UN of interfering in its internal affairs.