Myanmar has stopped nuclear research

SINGAPORE: Myanmar’s government has halted fledgling research on the peaceful use of nuclear power, the country’s defense minister said Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Hla Min told an Asia security conference in Singapore that the academic research had not progressed much because of what he called practical constraints.
“In this new government, we have already given up all activities of nuclear issues. We have no future plans to extend on this,” he said through an interpreter.
Hla Min acknowledged that Myanmar’s previous government, dominated by the military, had started academic studies on the peaceful use of nuclear power.
“In the case of the nuclear issue, we have already said very clearly that it is not for defense, it is not for weapons,” he said at the summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, which gathers mostly Asian defense officials. “It’s just research in the past. We have not progressed much due to our constraints,” he said.
He added Myanmar had no “practical ways and means” to achieve its objectives, apparently suggesting the previous government lacked the funds to pursue the nuclear project.
A 2010 United Nations report accused Pyongyang of supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Myanmar, Iran and Syria.
But in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times published in January, Myanmar President Thein Sein denied his country was trying to obtain nuclear weapons from North Korea, and called the allegations “unfounded.”
In a landmark visit to Myanmar in December, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the country to sever “illicit ties” with Pyongyang to foster better relations with Washington.
The defense minister on Saturday said Myanmar’s links with North Korea resembled normal ties between any two countries.
But Hla Min pledged that “in the future, we will be open and transparent on this relationship, we will endeavour to do that.”
He also dismissed a suggestion from the audience that Myanmar allow inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, into the country.
“We have nothing to check and nothing to see so it is irrelevant,” he said. Over the past year, Thein Sein, an ex-general, has taken steps to address criticism about the country’s poor human rights record and suppression of political dissent.
The government has freed hundreds of political prisoners, eased media restrictions and welcomed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition back into politics.
Myanmar held historic by-elections on April 1 in which Suu Kyi won a seat in parliament, and has signalled it is ready to accept more foreign investment.
Refugees cheer
Suu Kyi
In Mae La Camp, Thailand, Aung San Suu Kyi was given a rapturous welcome yesterday by thousands of Myanmar refugees forced by fighting and rights abuses in their homeland to live in a Thai border camp. Amid chaotic scenes, Suu Kyi stood on a plastic chair and without the aid of a microphone shouted her greetings to the jubilant crowd at the Mae La camp, in northwestern Thailand.
“I will try as much as I can for you to go back home,” she said.
“I will try to help as best I can with your health care needs,” she added, pledging that “I will not forget you all.”
It was the first time the Nobel laureate has met any of the estimated 140,000 refugees in Thailand, casting a light on their conditions after years of war and poverty that has driven them from their homes in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi’s trip to Thailand has seen her charm global business leaders gathered in Bangkok for a forum and draw thronging crowds on visits to the kingdom’s Myanmar communities.
The veteran activist met camp leaders for 90 minutes and then delivered her brief message as refugees, many waving flags and wearing traditional dress, chanted “Mother Suu.”
Mae La camp, home to nearly 50,000 refugees, is mainly populated by ethnic Karen people displaced by a vicious war that has rumbled on since 1949.
 FROM: AGENCIES


The Karen National Union signed a pact with Myanmar’s reform-minded government in January in a move that raised hopes of a permanent end to one of the world’s oldest civil conflicts.
Its armed wing has been waging Myanmar’s longest-running insurgency, battling the government in the eastern jungle near the Thai border — one of several rebellions in the ethnically diverse nation.
The camp, an ordered sprawl of bamboo huts topped with thatched roofs, is ringed by a perimeter fence, and security checkpoints keep residents in and unwanted visitors out.