Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar today played down a threat that Burma could be stripped of its Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) chairmanship next year unless it implements democratic reforms.

Syed Hamid was responding to questions over a plan by government parliamentarians in Malaysia to table a motion calling on Burma to release democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and speed up political reforms or face being passed over as Asean chair.

"We have said that Myanmar (Burma) must move in the way that it has undertaken to do so. But you must remember, a decision on a member of Asean is not made by a single country but by Asean as a consensus. An Asean consensus means unanimity," Syed Hamid told a news conference.

Thailand has already said it will not be a part of any campaign to suspend Burma from the Asean chair. Asean's other members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

The 10-member group rotates its chair alphabetically and Burma is due to take over from Malaysia in June 2006.

Immediate concern

Syed Hamid said his immediate concern was to ensure that Malaysia could successfully organise its own Asean summit at the end of this year.

"At the summit, we've got so many things that we have to discuss. I would not like to speculate or talk about my feelings now about Myanmar," he said.

Malaysia 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 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 has been denounced internationally as a sham.