Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday called US actions in Asia ‘destructive’, accusing Washington of being behind a ‘militarisation’ of Japan and attempting to turn other countries against Russia and China.
‘The destructive character of US actions in this part of the world is obvious,’ Lavrov told reporters at an East Asia Summit in Laos.
Asked about Japan’s proposal for a NATO-style Asian pact, Lavrov said: ‘Ideas about creating military blocs always carry risks of confrontation that could escalate’.
‘As far as Japan is concerned, we are seriously concerned about its militarisation. The Japanese are obviously being pushed to such a course by the United States,’ he said.
Lavrov also said the US, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia had attempted to make the summit’s final statement ‘deeply politicised’ and it therefore ‘could not be adopted’.
He said Western countries wanted to exploit their ties with ASEAN ‘above all against the interests of Russia and China’.
Meanwhile, a free election in junta-ruled Myanmar is currently ‘impossible to imagine’ a US diplomat said Friday, days after the junta chief doubled down on plans for fresh polls backed by close ally China.
The military seized power in 2021 after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud and has since arrested and killed thousands and banned political parties in a sweeping crackdown on dissent.
It has said it will hold fresh polls, likely next year, even as it has lost territory across the country to established ethnic rebel groups and newer ‘People’s Defence Forces’ formed since the coup.Â
It is currently ‘impossible to imagine conducting a free election’ in Myanmar, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack told reporters.
Any poll would ‘simply be an election that will return them [the military] to power,’ said Van Schaack, who advises the US government on responses to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
With clashes in almost every region of the country ‘it is hard to imagine even just logistically how one would administer an election, no less do so in a way that is fair,’ she said.
State media said Wednesday that junta chief Min Aung Hlaing ‘clearly reaffirmed’ the military’s plans to hold elections.
The military has pushed back a timetable for fresh polls several times, and in March the top general hinted any vote may not take place nationwide due to the conflict.
Junta officials are currently conducting a national census, which is seen as a pre-requisite to any new polls.
Any vote would not feature Aung San Suu Kyi’s hugely popular National League for Democracy party, which was dissolved by the junta-stacked election commission last year.
