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Myanmar
ChinaDiplomacy

Myanmar’s opposition foreign minister urges China to stop ‘arms deals’ with ruling junta

  • Regime’s military leaders use the shipped weapons to ‘kill their own people and civilians’, senior official representing ousted government tells Post
  • National Unity Government leader also vows more drone assaults like the one carried out in the capital Naypyidaw earlier this month

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The People’s Liberation Army organised a joint live-troop and live-fire exercise on the mainland side of the China-Myanmar border in early April. Reports have suggested China is one of the Myanmese junta’s main military backers. Photo: Weibo
Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
The opposition in Myanmar has called on China to stop providing arms to the ruling military junta, saying the regime is using them to “kill their own people and civilians”.
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“We are trying to encourage our neighbouring country, please do not support the military junta, not just only in business or financially, but also in terms of providing arms deals,” said Zin Mar Aung, foreign minister of the National Unity Government of Myanmar, during an interview in Brussels.
The NUG claims to be Myanmar’s official government-in-exile, representing the elected civilian government previously led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and ousted in a 2021 coup.

Zin Mar Aung said her government had written to Beijing to convey this request officially and received an acknowledgement of receipt but no substantive reply.

“If a country supports the military junta, they are supporting [it] to kill their own people and civilians,” she told the Post during a trip on which she sought to encourage the European Union to ratchet up sanctions against the regime.
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