Cambodia will not back a Malaysian-led campaign to block Burma from chairing Asean next year, Prime Minister Hun Sen said today, arguing it would violate the grouping's policy of non-interference.

Malaysian MPs are planning to table a motion calling on Burma to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and speed up political reforms or face being passed over as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year.

Aung San Suu Kyi, an international icon of democracy and Nobel peace prize winner, has spent various periods in house arrest since 1989. Her latest began in May 2003.

"There are some rumours and some newspapers may report that Cambodia will take part in a campaign to block Myanmar (Burma) from ... chairing Asean in 2006," the premier told graduates of a civil administration school in the capital.

"Cambodia would like to affirm its adherence to the policy that Myanmar's problems are the internal affairs of Myanmar," he said.

"Cambodia will not join (the campaign) and opposes any activities aiming to split Asean.... Nobody knows Myanmar's problems like Myanmar does," he added.

Talking with other leaders

Hun Sen said he would raise the issue with Vietnam's communist party chief Nong Duc Manh, who arrived in the kingdom Monday on a state visit, as well as with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong who visits Thursday.

He will also discuss it with Thailand's new top diplomat Kantathi Suphamongkhon who arrives Friday, ahead of a visit here by Burmese Prime Minister Lieutenant General Soe Win beginning April 7.

"It would set a bad precedent. Later on when (the chairmanship) reaches Thailand, then they could say Thailand is having problems in the south, it cannot be chair if there is no peace in the south," Hun Sen said, referring to ongoing unrest which has claimed more than 630 lives since January 2004.

Malaysia takes over the chair of the Asean at a summit in Kuala Lumpur in June and Burma's turn is due in June 2006.

Burma, whose membership in the grouping is a growing irritant in relations between Asean and western countries, joined Asean in 1997, two years ahead of Cambodia.

Other members are Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.