Malaysia has been urged to bring Asean and European Union ties back on track after the cancellation of two events involving the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) due to a rift over the attendance of military-ruled Burma.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said Burma should not be allowed to be an "albatross" by hindering greater political, economic and cultural ties between Asia and Europe.

EU has recently cancelled an Asem finance ministers gathering next month in Brussels. The Asem economy ministers meeting in Rotterdam, scheduled for September, has also been put off.

The Brussels meeting would have been the first between the two regions since the EU expanded from 15 to 25 nations last month.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) had insisted that if the EU wanted to bring along its 10 new states, Burma's military junta be represented at the talks along with the two other most recent additions to Asean, Cambodia and Laos.

However, EU has a visa ban in place against the Burmese junta, which EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said had overseen a "calamitous" deterioration in the life of its deeply impoverished people and had failed to deliver on promises of political reform.

Not even-handed

Lim said that Malaysia, being chiefly responsible for Rangoon's entry into Asean in 1997, has a responsibility to break the Asem deadlock.

He chastised Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar for not being even-handed on dealing with the matter.

Yesterday, Syed Hamid criticised European countries for cancelling the meetings with their Asian partners.

However, he was silent over Burma's continued refusal to release opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been put under house arrest over a year ago after a clash between her supporters and a junta-backed mob.

"Syed Hamid had been foreign minister for some five years, and has largely failed to get the Burmese military junta to live up to its bargain of the 'constructive engagement' policy to be a more responsible player of international relations with full commitment to a meaningful process of democratisation and national reconciliation," said Lim.

"Why had Syed Hamid and the other Asean leaders failed to ensure that the Burmese military junta had kept to its promises ... such as the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi?"

Lim also expressed fears that the fifth Asem summit in Hanoi this October - to be attended by EU, Asean, and China, Japan and South Korea - will also be cancelled.

"The cabinet meeting tomorrow should give a mandate and directive to the Foreign Ministry to propose a Malaysian initiative at the Asean Ministerial Meeting in Jakarta at the end of the month to salvage the Asem summit," said the opposition leader.

Burma, whose military junta refused to recognise the overwhelming victory by the opposition National League for Democracy in the 1990 elections, has remained a thorn in the relationship between Europe and Asia since Rangoon joined Asean seven years ago.

Lim said that the Malaysian government should consider replacing Asean's failed policy of "constructive engagement" with a new approach of "constructive intervention".