ASEAN foreign ministers urge more progress in Myanmar crisis

By NINIEK KARMINI and GRANT PECK
Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Southeast Asian foreign ministers have acknowledged that their efforts to bring peace to Myanmar haven’t succeeded and agreed to increase their determination to end violence in the country, where a military takeover last year set off a crisis that threatens to destabilize the region. At a special meeting, ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations called for “concrete, practical and time-bound actions” to strengthen the implementation of an agreement the group reached last year on ways to seek peace. Indonesia’s foreign minister says the ministers expressed concern and disappointment, and in some cases frustration, with the lack of significant progress in the agreement.