IT HAS been nearly three years to the day since the Myanmar military, on the morning of Feb 1, 2021, launched a coup against the civilian government led by pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and declared the results of the 2020 general election null and void.

The country has never been the same since, with some reports saying that more than 4,400 people have died during the bloody crackdown and nearly 20,000 others remaining in detention indefinitely.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) – of which Myanmar is still officially a member of – has tried its best, under the past three chairmanships (Brunei in 2021, Cambodia in 2022, and Indonesia in 2023), to play a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to quell the crisis but has seen little progress – if any at all.

The region’s foreign ministers were in Luang Prabang over the weekend for the first high-level meeting of Laos’ year-long chairmanship of the Asean bloc.

Unsurprisingly, the ongoing Myanmar crisis featured heavily on the agenda during their two-day retreat in the picturesque town. Tellingly, Myanmar’s junta decided to send a senior civil servant – the permanent secretary of its Foreign Ministry – to the closed-door gathering, which marked the first time in over two years that the diplomatically isolated country had been present at an Asean meeting at this level.

It is a small but significant breakthrough in the long road to somehow finding a resolution to the crisis, given the fact that Asean has banned the junta leaders from its annual summits and ministerial meetings since October 2021.

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Since then, the generals have repeatedly refused invitations by the Asean chair to send a non-political representative to the meetings. The junta’s somewhat surprising change of heart to deploy an official to Laos this week suggests that there could be a glimmer of hope for some progress in the talks, although it is perhaps too premature to expect a resolution to the crisis anytime soon.

Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan painted a rather bleak picture of the reality on the ground with his admission that the situation in Myanmar – the security, the safety of the people, and the state of the economy – is actually worse than it was three years ago. In his words, the political situation in Myanmar is a complex one that goes back decades, and it could take “a very long time” for any positive change to occur.

On its part, there is an expectation that the 10-member Asean grouping can and should continue to play a helpful and constructive role in engaging the junta. There is also the matter of the five-point peace plan that Myanmar signed up to but has since failed to implement. And as the foreign ministers said in a joint statement after their meeting, there needs to be a process to reach a “Myanmar-owned and led solution” to the crisis.

These are difficult issues that will likely take some years to resolve, but the long-suffering people of Myanmar – who watched their country go through nearly a decade of limited democratic reforms and strong economic growth – should realise they are far from alone in this battle. They deserve to receive as much help as possible from the international community – especially from their Asean neighbours – to point Myanmar towards a peaceful, comprehensive and durable solution to the crisis.