INTERNATIONAL: Southeast Asian nations held talks in Cambodia on Thursday, February 17, amid divisions in the bloc over how to restore stability in Myanmar after a military coup a year ago and with the junta's representative barred from attending the meeting.

Cambodia is the current chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which last year unexpectedly blocked Myanmar's military government from joining key meetings over a failure to honor a peace plan agreed with the bloc.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had sought to re-engage the junta, but amid friction over the approach, ASEAN has excluded Myanmar's military-appointed foreign minister from this week's meeting, which was postponed from January.

Besides the junta's foreign minister being barred, some ASEAN ministers did not travel and were due to attend virtually after a surge in coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia.

^{PHOTO: ASEAN FOREIGN MINISTERS IN MEETING, EXTERIORS OF MEETING VENUE}