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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden on Monday threatened to reimpose sanctions on Myanmar following a coup by the country’s military leaders and called for a concerted international response to pressure them to relinquish power.
Biden on Monday condemned the military’s takeover of the civilian-led government and the arrest of elected leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law. “.
The Myanmar crisis marks an important first test of Biden’s commitment to collaborate more with allies on international challenges, especially China’s growing influence, in contrast to former President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, which tends to go alone.
It also represented a rare political alignment between Biden’s fellow Democrats and leading Republicans when they came together to denounce the coup and urge the Myanmar military to face the consequences.
“The international community must unite with one voice to pressure the Burmese army to immediately renounce the power it has taken, release the activists and officials they have detained,” Biden said in a statement.
“The United States removed sanctions against Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy. Reversing that progress will require an immediate review of our sanctions laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action,” he said.
Biden also called on the military in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, to lift all restrictions on telecommunications and refrain from violence against civilians.
He said the United States was “taking note of those who support the Burmese people in this difficult hour.”
“We will work with our partners throughout the region and the world to support the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, as well as to hold those responsible for reversing Burma’s democratic transition to account,” he said.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won an overwhelming 83% in the November 8 elections. The military said upon seizing power in the early hours of Monday that it had responded to what it called electoral fraud.
‘INTENSIVE’ CONSULTATIONS
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a regular news conference that the United States has had “intensive” talks with allies on Myanmar. He declined to say what other actions were being considered in addition to the sanctions.
When asked if Biden’s assertion that the United States was “taking note” of how other countries respond was a message for China, Psaki told reporters: “It is a message for all countries in the region.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Top Democrat Robert Menéndez said the United States and other countries “should impose strict economic sanctions as well as other measures” against Myanmar’s military and military leadership if they do not release elected leaders and they remove themselves from the government.
Menendez also denounced that the Myanmar military was guilty of “genocide” against the Rohingya Muslim minority, a determination that has not yet been declared by the US government, and of a sustained campaign of violence against other minorities.
The Republican leader of the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell, who like members of the Biden administration has had close ties to Suu Kyi, called the arrests “horrible” and demanded a tough response.
“The Biden Administration must take a firm stand and our partners and all the democracies of the world must follow suit in condemning this authoritarian attack on democracy,” he said.
McConnell added that Washington needed to “impose costs” on those behind the coup.
The events in Myanmar are a significant blow to the Biden administration and its effort to forge a solid Asia Pacific policy to deal with China.
Many members of Biden’s political team in Asia, including his boss, Kurt Campbell, are veterans of the Obama administration, which at the end of former President Barack Obama’s term praised his work to end decades of military rule in Myanmar as a major achievement. foreign policy. Biden served as Obama’s vice president.
Obama began easing sanctions in 2011 after the military began to loosen its grip, and announced in 2016 the lifting of many of the remaining sanctions. But in 2019, the Trump administration imposed targeted sanctions on four military commanders, including General Min Aung Hlaing, for human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Jonathan Landay, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk; written by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; edited by Grant McCool)
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