Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing Arrives in Malaysia: Once-Shunned Military Leader Gets the Kuala Lumpur Red Carpet
KUALA LUMPUR — Myanmar's junta chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Malaysia on Wednesday, October 7, for talks with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, as the military-backed leader once shunned by regional nations seeks international legitimacy. 'The visit provides the prime minister with an opportunity to sustain his direct engagement with Myanmar,' the Malaysian government said in a statement on Tuesday.
The two-day visit comes as Malaysia pushes ahead with a controversial move to repatriate thousands of Myanmar nationals, despite warnings from the United Nations and rights groups that returnees could face serious danger amid a raging civil war. Anwar told parliament on October 6 that about 10,000 Myanmar nationals have been sent home since January. Key bilateral issues, the Malaysian statement said, include the 'voluntary, dignified and safe repatriation of Myanmar nationals of all ethnic groups who have been in Malaysia illegally'.
Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021 that triggered a civil war estimated to have killed 100,000 people and displaced more than 3.5 million. The military then engineered a widely criticised election that allowed him, though subject to a raft of Western sanctions, to take up the civilian role of president in April. He and other senior Myanmar officials have been excluded from ASEAN summits since 2021 for failing to implement the bloc's peace roadmap, but individual countries in the region have moved to rebuild ties with Naypyitaw. Since becoming president, he has visited Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as China, India, Russia and Belarus.
For Malaysia, the engagement is a balancing act: on one side, the fiscal and security pressure of hosting some 193,000 Myanmar refugees; on the other, humanitarian concerns and international criticism. Anwar's government is betting that direct engagement buys repatriation cooperation and movement on peace. Whether the bet pays off will be tested in the talks — and in what happens afterwards.
(Source: Compiled from Reuters reporting on)
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 吉隆坡国际机场航站楼内景，Maksym Kozlenko 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0（Wikimedia Commons）
