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), according to Reuters. Myanmar wanted to focus its full attention on efforts at national reconciliation and restoring democracy after more than four decades of military rule, the statement said. "We expressed our sincere appreciation to the government of Myanmar for not allowing its national preoccupation to affect ASEAN solidarity and cohesiveness," Somsavat said, adding that 2006 would be a "critical year" for the former Burma. On the eve of the ASEAN meeting in Vientiane, British Foreign Office minister Ian Pearson had repeated U.S. and European threats to boycott ASEAN proceedings in 2006 if the generals took up the reins without embracing any meaningful political reform. Washington welcomed Tuesday's announcement.
