Lawmakers from five Southeast Asian countries will gather in Singapore on June 2 to press for Burma to be stripped of the Asean chair next year unless it introduces political reforms, a Malaysian parliamentarian said today.

Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang told AFP the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus would meet in Singapore in conjunction with the launch of the Singapore branch of the group.

The lawmakers would urge Asean to take a strong stand on Burma, including a demand for the release of opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, when the foreign ministers meet in Vientiane, Laos in late July, Lim said.

"We want an immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and introduction of democratic reforms," he said.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest, and Burma's ruling junta has ignored international demands that she should be freed.

A smokescreen

Lim warned that recent remarks that Burma may withdraw from holding the rotating Asean chair next year could simply be a "smokescreen by the Myanmar (Burma) military junta to buy time and fob off the mounting regional and international pressures.

"The fundamental question about it being a rogue state with its egregious human rights record as well as the breach of its longstanding promise when it joined Asean in 1997 to embark on democratization and national reconciliation remain outstanding issues," he said.

The European Union and the United States have warned they would boycott Asean meetings if Burma was allowed to chair the 10-member group.