(Reuters) Southeast Asian leaders said they had agreed on a plan with Myanmar’s junta chief on Saturday to end the crisis in the violence-hit nation, but he did not explicitly respond to demands to halt the killing of civilian protesters.
“It’s beyond our expectation,” Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told reporters after the leaders’ meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was also attended by Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
“We tried not to accuse his side too much because we don’t care who’s causing it,” Muhyiddin added. “We just stressed that the violence must stop. For him, it’s the other side that’s causing the problems. But he agreed that violence must stop.”
ASEAN leaders wanted a commitment from Min Aung Hlaing to restrain his security forces, who an activist monitoring group says have killed 745 people since a mass civil disobedience movement erupted to challenge his Feb. 1 coup. They had also wanted the release of political prisoners.
