Kerry calls 2015 elections Myanmar's 'benchmark moment'

Kerry calls 2015 elections Myanmar's 'benchmark moment'

Published on Tuesday, 12 August 2014 00:16

Next year's elections will be the "benchmark" for determining the direction Myanmar is heading, Washington's top diplomat told a press conference in Nay Pyi Taw on August 10.

"Next year election will absolutely be a benchmark moment for the whole world to be able to assess the direction that Burma is moving in," US Secretary of State John Kerry said.

He said Myanmar had a long way to go to successfully switch from military to civilian rule, and stressed that Washington did not have "blind trust" in its newly established relationships with Nay Pyi Taw.

"We are not basing anything that we are doing in Myanmar on the basis of blind trust or some naïve sense of what the challenges are. I just listed a long list of challenges, and I went through every single one of those challenges with our hosts in a very, very direct way," Kerry said.

He welcomed Myanmar's democratic reform processes, but said much still needed to be done. However, he added that the Myanmar leaders he had met with acknowledged this and demonstrated willingness and readiness to continue the reform process.

Myanmar still needs to end its decades-long civil wars, protect its media, ensure land rights and end violence, he said. He highlighted the crisis in Rakhine State, constitutional reform and the role of the military as significant challenges.

Kerry also invited Thura Shwe, speaker of the lower house of Parliament, and other MPs to Washington to meet US legislators in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, saying this might help their effort to amend the military drafted 2008 Constitution.

 

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