UNITED NATIONS - The Association of Southeast Asian Nations sternly demanded on Thursday that fellow member Myanmar stop using violence against demonstrators and voiced "revulsion" at killings in Yangon.
In unusually blunt language for the 10-member group, the nine other foreign ministers said in a statement they were "appalled to receive reports of automatic weapons being used" and demanded that the Myanmar government "immediately desist from the use of violence against demonstrators."
The ministers "expressed their revulsion to Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win over reports that the demonstrations in Myanmar are being suppressed by violent force and that there has been a number of fatalities," said the statement, issued after talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The group operates on a consensual basis and holds as a core principle "noninterference in the internal affairs of one another".
The statement came shortly before a U.N. spokeswoman announced that Myanmar's military junta had agreed to receive a U.N. envoy from Saturday to discuss the crisis.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent veteran diplomat Ibrahim Gambari on a mission to the region after security forces used force to try to quell the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations in two decades, led by Buddhist monks.
Nine protesters were killed in Myanmar's main city, Yangon, on Thursday when soldiers and police fired on crowds protesting decades of army rule and economic hardship, state media said.
KEY U.N. MISSION
Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win was not present when the ASEAN statement was issued and his representative sat stony-faced and had no comment after the meeting.
