Few had high hopes that a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which counts Myanmar among its members, would produce any serious initiative to end the bloodshed after Myanmar's coup, with the junta leader himself in attendance.
Yet the summit's concluding "consensus statement" — accepted by all member states including Myanmar — did stretch the bounds of ASEAN's longstanding principle of noninterference in members' internal affairs.
It called for an end to violence and a dialogue among all parties — interpreted by some as an attempt to broker talks between the junta and Myanmar's parallel National Unity Government (NUG) — as well as the naming of an ASEAN envoy and a humanitarian aid mission.