Myanmar's military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, is expected to attend a regional summit in Thailand in April, marking his first visit to an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member state since 2021, Thai PBS reported.

Citing a "highly placed source", Thai PBS said Min Aung Hlaing would take part in the 6th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Bangkok on April 3-4. BIMSTEC, a regional grouping that includes India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, and Thailand, aims to promote economic growth and cooperation. The summit will also include a series of bilateral meetings to enhance diplomatic and economic relations, Thai PBS reported. If confirmed, the visit would be a diplomatic victory for Myanmar’s ruling junta, which has faced international isolation since seizing power in a coup in February 2021.

ASEAN has barred junta representatives from high-level meetings since late 2021, a decision reaffirmed at a foreign ministers’ meeting in January. Min Aung Hlaing has made few overseas trips since the coup, with Russia being his most frequent destination. He has visited the country four times since 2021, meeting President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. In November, he travelled to China for the first time since the coup, underscoring growing diplomatic engagement with Beijing. His last visit to an ASEAN member state was in April 2021, when he attended an emergency summit in Jakarta that produced the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus peace plan, which remains largely unimplemented.

No Southeast Asian government has officially hosted Min Aung Hlaing since then, though ASEAN has not explicitly prohibited individual states from doing so. Thailand’s reported decision to invite Min Aung Hlaing to the BIMSTEC summit, rather than a foreign ministry official or the junta’s foreign minister, suggests a departure from ASEAN’s broader stance. Thailand has previously engaged with Myanmar’s military leadership, hosting meetings on border security and transnational crime in December, attended by officials from China, Laos, India, and Bangladesh.

Thailand shares a 2,416-km border with Myanmar, where conflict has escalated since the coup. Bangkok has argued that direct engagement with the junta is necessary to address cross-border issues, including the rise of online scam operations in eastern Myanmar. BIMSTEC has not imposed restrictions on junta representation, allowing Myanmar’s military government to participate in recent meetings. However, Thailand’s approach risks widening divisions within ASEAN and complicating the bloc’s efforts to address Myanmar’s crisis, which has seen thousands killed in military crackdowns since 2021.

Human rights activists and Myanmar pro-democracy groups have condemned Min Aung Hlaing’s expected participation in the Bangkok summit, calling it an endorsement of the junta’s legitimacy. On February 13, a federal court in Argentina issued arrest warrants for Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s former State Counsellor and Nobel laureate, under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

The warrants accuse both leaders of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya ethnic minority. Universal jurisdiction allows states or international bodies to prosecute individuals for grave crimes such as genocide and war crimes, regardless of where they occurred or any direct link through nationality. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to confirm Min Aung Hlaing’s attendance when contacted by Reuters. Rights groups argue that allowing him to attend the summit undermines accountability efforts and signals regional acceptance of Myanmar’s military regime.