Asean will continue to try and persuade Burma to introduce political reforms, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said today, but the grouping would not expel Rangoon.

"By engaging them, we can try to persuade or influence them, although without much success at present," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

Syed Hamid, who was picked as envoy by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) last December to visit Burma said that Asean did not have any mechanism to suspend or expel a member.

"At present, once you become a member of Asean, generally it is a membership for life.

"There is no procedure or mechanism for dismissing or asking a member country to be suspended or expelled from the organistion," he said.

Malaysia which currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), will host the group's annual security forum in late July which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend.

'Frustrated and disillusioned'

Syed Hamid said it was difficult for Asean to continuously defend Burma, if its leaders were not cooperative.

"We can only inform them (Burma) on what they should do as part of Asean," he said. Burma joined Asean in 1997.

Syed Hamid travelled to Rangoon in March as an Asean envoy to check for any progress towards democracy, but was denied access to the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Regional leaders were "frustrated and disillusioned" with Burma, he said afterwards.

The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of national elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent 10 of the past 17 years in detention.