Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday he had no regrets at bringing army-ruled Burma into the Asean grouping and urged the international community not to use sanctions to force Rangoon to adopt democracy.

"No regrets," Mahathir said when asked by reporters about his key role in backing Burma's membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 1997 in Kuala Lumpur.

His statement yesterday contrasted with his July warning to Burma that it could face expulsion from Asean if it continued to defy world pressure to release democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving elected leader with 22 years in power, was speaking at the end of his last summit of Asean leaders. He is to retire at the end of this month.

Be patient

He said the international community should be patient with democratic reforms in Burma, which was also facing ethnic tensions.

"People go through certain periods of difficulty and they have to react to these difficulties. We have to be patient," he said, rejecting suggestions that sanctions be used to pressure the junta.

"We don't believe in applying sanctions on a country that refuses or has not been able to become a democracy," Mahathir said. "(It) will actually victimise the people of Burma rather than the government (and) will not do any good at all in solving the problem."

He said sanctions would starve the people and deprive them of medicine and "that is a cruel way to trying to spread an ideology."

Mahathir said the United States was known to be a leading democracy but noted it was "the only country which has dropped an atomic bomb."

Asean leaders at their meeting here avoided any public criticism of their fellow member. - AFP