Little SE Asia can do to change Myanmar -S'pore PM

SINGAPORE, June 1 (Reuters) Southeast Asian nations can do little to influence Myanmar's domestic policies or encourage the military leadership to open up, Singapore's prime minister told an Asian security conference today.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, which includes Singapore and Myanmar among its 10 members, has long stuck to a policy of non-interference in one another's domestic politics.

But the group has come under increasing pressure from the West to try to exert influence on Myanmar to help secure the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and encourage more democracy.

''Myanmar is a problem. It's a problem for ASEAN, it's a problem for Myanmar itself,'' Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the opening dinner of a security conference attended by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other senior defence officials from the region.

''I think we have to be realistic about what ASEAN can do,'' Lee said, in response to questions. ''We have to accept that our leverage on them is limited.'' On May 25, Myanmar's military junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi for another year, ignoring international pleas for her release from the White House, the United Nations and from fellow Nobel winners.

Myanmar has been a thorn in ASEAN's side for years over its failure to move on a ''roadmap to democracy'' and release political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.

''We can take a strident position and say well, we will condemn you, we will shut you off, we will embargo you, we will put you in the dog house. Will we make things better? Will we even cause things to change? I don't believe so,'' Lee said.

''They want to be closed off from the rest of ASEAN. They want to be left on their own.'' Instead, ASEAN would leave Myanmar to sort out its own issues, Lee said.

''We have exercised our influence, persuaded and encouraged, cajoled the authorities to move and adjust and adapt to the world which is leaving them behind,'' he added.

Some of Myanmar's top government leaders have been in Singapore recently for medical treatment, including junta leader Than Shwe, who came to the city-state in January.

Last week, ASEAN officials said they would not raise the issue of continued detention of Suu Kyi in meetings with 17 security partners, including some of Myanmar's harshest critics, such as the United States and the European Union.

Aside from Singapore and Myanmar, ASEAN includes Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

REUTERS AM RN2106