Anti-regime militias have captured Myawaddy – a strategically important border city and home to about 200,000 people – from Myanmar’s ruling junta. The Karen National Union (KNU) is now in control of most of Karen state and is urging direct talks with the Thais across the frontier. The KNU is one of about 20 ethnic … Read more
Thailand is prepared to accept up to 100,000 people from the conflict-torn Karen State in neighboring Myanmar, its foreign minister said yesterday, as ethnic Karen rebels closed in on the town of Myawaddy on the Thai border. Late last week, the Karen National Union (KNU) announced that it and allied anti-regime militias had overrun a … Read more
Thailand has dispatched its first batch of aid along a humanitarian corridor to Myanmar that was recently established to assist civilian populations affected by the country’s metastasizing civil war. According to The Associated Press, Thailand yesterday sent 10 trucks over the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border crossing, carrying around 4,000 packages of aid to three towns in … Read more
Today, Reuters published a report quoting a senior Thai official about the country’s new humanitarian initiative on Myanmar, which was agreed last week by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the close of their informal meeting in Luang Prabang, ASEAN foreign ministers and a representative from Myanmar’s military junta endorsed Thailand’s initiative to … Read more
Advertisement The past two-and-a-half years have seen Myanmar enmeshed in a spiraling political crisis. Since the 2021 coup that toppled a civilian-led government under the National League for Democracy (NLD), the country has been embroiled in a civil war during which at least 3,800 civilians have been killed by the military, and another 23,000 have … Read more
Advertisement Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said yesterday that he held a secret meeting with Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the first high-ranking foreign official to do so since she was imprisoned by the military in February 2021. According to various media reports, Don briefed his Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) … Read more
Advertisement Human rights groups and civil society organizations have criticized a plan by Thailand’s caretaker government to convene another “informal” meeting on the crisis in Myanmar, arguing that it will undermine efforts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to broker a solution to the country’s conflict. On Saturday, Reuters published a report revealing … Read more
Advertisement Early yesterday morning, Thailand’s Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) cut power supply to two small regions of southeastern Myanmar at the request of the country’s military junta. The contract to deliver electricity across the border to Lay Kay Kaw and Shwe Kokko in Myawaddy township, Karen State, expired yesterday, and as The Nation reported on … Read more
Advertisement One of many questions to emerge from the stunning opposition victory at Thailand’s general election on May 14 is the possible impact on the country’s policy toward Myanmar. The progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the most seats in the House of Representatives, is also the one major party that has flagged a … Read more