Yangon, Aug 3 (AFP/APP): Russia backs the Myanmar junta’s efforts to “stabilise” the crisis-wracked country and hold elections next year, its foreign minister said in talks with top generals on Wednesday, according to Russian state media.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the putsch last year, with the junta accused by rights groups of committing war crimes as it struggles to crush resistance to its rule.
Isolated internationally and with Western governments imposing sanctions, the military government has sought to deepen ties with major ally and arms supplier Russia — whose invasion of Ukraine it has said was “justified”.
“We are in solidarity with the efforts [by the junta] aimed at stabilising the situation in the country,” Sergei Lavrov said during talks in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, according to the TASS news agency.
“Next year, you will hold legislative elections and we wish you success,” Lavrov added, referring to proposed August 2023 elections that opponents of the coup have said will be neither free nor fair.
On Monday junta chief Min Aung Hlaing — who travelled to Moscow last month — said polls could only take place when the conflict-wracked country was “stable and peaceful”.
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