INDONESIAN President Joko Widodo told fellow South-east Asian leaders today that no progress had been made to end the civil conflict gripping Myanmar.

Mr Widodo was speaking to fellow leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on the final day of their two-day summit in the Indonesian harbour town of Labuan Bajo. 

He said: “There has been no significant progress in the implementation of the five-point consensus.”

The leaders of the 10-nation bloc put forward a peace plan to the Myanmar regime in 2021 calling for an immediate end to the violence in the country and for dialogue to bring about lasting peace.

But Myanmar’s military regime refused to take the agreed steps to enforce the plan, prompting Asean leaders to exclude the country’s ruling generals and their appointees from the bloc’s summit meetings. 

The generals have protested against Asean’s move, which they said was a departure from the group’s policy of non-intervention in each other’s domestic affairs and deciding by consensus.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim publicly expressed his frustrations: “Asean has not been able to resolve most problems, contentious ones,” Mr Anwar told fellow leaders on Wednesday in videotaped remarks. 

“Yes, there is non-interference, but we will have to then have a new vision that could give us some flexibility in order to navigate and manoeuvre the way forward,” he said.

For the second year, Myanmar’s top general, Min Aung Hlaing, was not invited to the summit. General Hlaing led the army in seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

The move plunged the country into a deep and deadly civil conflict  and has become Asean’s gravest crisis since its establishment.

More than 3,450 civilians have been killed by security forces since Myanmar’s military took power, and thousands more remain imprisoned, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.