Myanmar media: Serbia selling weapons to junta; Belgrade denies

NEWS 27.01.202210:35 0 komentara
REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Serbia's Defence Ministry denied on Thursday reports about the country arms export to the Myanmar junta accused of massacring civilians for a year.

In a written response for the independent Danas daily, the Ministry rebuffed Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) Irrawaddy’s website report that Serbia’s delegation was in the country on January 17 for talks on military cooperation, including the sale of weapons to the local authorities.

„The Ministry’s and the Army of Serbia’s delegations were not in Myanmar and did not negotiate the arms sale to that country. Permits for arms export to Myanmar have not been issued since the outbreak of the last crisis in that country,“ the Ministry’s response to the daily read.

On January 5, Irrawaddy reported that the regime there „has few friends abroad and is recognised by only a few countries in the world.“ Serbia is among the five countries in the world that recognise the country, and, according to the media reports, still sells weapons to the military junta.

The website added that the key exporters of weapons for the Myanmar army were Russia, Belarus and Serbia.

It added that during the celebration of the Independence Day of Myanmar, on January 4, the junta’s newspaper published greeting messages from Russia, Belarus, Serbia, North Korea and Cambodia.

The website, founded in the early 1990s, is one of the few independent media critical of the military junta in Myanmar and reportedly has over 15 million followers on Facebook.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on June 18, 2021, condemning the military coup in Myanmar carried out in February that year. It called for the restoration of democracy and an arms embargo on that country. Serbia supported the ban on arms sales to the military junta there.

Danas daily recalled that Serbia has a tradition of selling weapons to Myanmar, which had intensified since 2010, according to this month’s report by Burma Camping UK, a non-governmental organisation for protecting human rights and the development of democracy.

The organisation, which is said to play a vital role in co-ordinating Burma’s international liberation campaign, published an analysis this month titled ‘Is Serbia still selling weapons to the Myanmar military junta?’ saying that from the military coup on February 1, 2021, there were unverified reports of military contacts, the supply and sale of arms and military equipment to the Myanmar military.

In the past, it recalled, such reports were based on Serbia’s close relations with the Burmese army for decades, adding that Belgrade signed a contract on defence cooperation in 2015, when Bratislav Gasic, current head of Serbia’s civilian security agency, was defence minister, and it continued to supply weapons in the following years.

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