Malaysia will press for Burma to be refused the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year unless it carries out democratic reforms, local media said today.

The government will table a motion in parliament calling on Burma's military rulers to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and speed up reforms, Minister in the Prime Minister's office, Nazri Abdul Aziz, told the New Straits Times .

If the junta fails to make progress, "we will ask for Myanmar's (Burma) turn to be the chairman of Asean to be suspended and given to other countries until democratic reforms are carried out," Nazri was quoted as saying.

The chair is rotated alphabetically each year among members Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Malaysia takes over the chair at a summit in Kuala Lumpur in June and Burma's turn is due in July next year.

Burma's membership of the grouping since 1997 has been a growing irritant in relations between Asean and western countries, including the United States.

US warning

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke warned in Bangkok on Monday that the US and other countries might boycott the 2006 summit and two major meetings immediately afterwards if they are held in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) as scheduled.

"By holding them in Rangoon next year, Asean runs a very serious risk of finding some of the most important countries that have attended regularly for over a quarter century, including the United States, may not show," Holbrooke said.

Malaysia had warned Burma in December that its pledge to move towards democracy could only be credible if Aung San Suu Kyi were released from house arrest.

The international icon of democracy and Nobel peace prize winner has spent various periods in house arrest since 1989. Her latest began in May 2003.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but has never been allowed to take power.

The military junta announced a seven-step roadmap to democracy in 2003 but it has barely got off the ground and been denounced internationally as a sham.