Japan’s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has promised to press the EU on its restrictions against Rangoon after the Netherlands refused a visa to Burma’s economics minister Soe Tha for today’s Asia-Europe meeting (known as ASEM) in Rotterdam.

Speaking after the Japan-Asean ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the UN summit in New York Thursday, a spokesperson for Machimura told reporters the EU was confusing multilateral with bilateral issues in Burma’s case.

The EU currently bars high-ranking members of the junta and their families from entering countries within the community.

“Nobutaka Machimura said that the European Union should split bilateral issues
from multilateral matters in issuing visas to Myanmar [Burmese] officials,” a spokesperson for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo told The Irrawaddy today.

“He will raise the issue during the Japan-EU Meeting,” the official confirmed.

Machimura will meet with EU foreign ministers and officials on Saturday at the UN headquarters in New York, where he is expected to press the region’s delegates on permitting visas to members of the junta attending multilateral events.

Asean on Monday made a collective decision not to send its economics ministers to the ASEM summit on September 16 to 17 to protest against the Netherlands’ decision. An organizer of the meeting in Rotterdam confirmed today that only lower ranking economics ministers will attend-including those of Japan, China and South Korea-although there was a question mark over Burma’s representative in Soe Tha’s absence.

“No-one from Myanmar (Burma) is attending,” the spokesperson said.

The Netherlands’ Ministry for Foreign Affairs said on Friday there has been no attempt by a lower-ranking Burmese official to apply for a visa in Soe Tha’s place.

The ministry confirmed Burma’s proposed representative had been denied a visa. Explaining the decision, a spokesperson for The Hague, Judith Maas, said: “Because of the EU common position, we had to reject the visa application.”

The ministry sent out invitations for the event in June, Maas said, including a warning to Rangoon that an attempt to send one of its high-level ministers-all of whom are black-listed by the EU-would be denied.

The EU renewed its restrictions against the junta in April this year for a further 12 months, stating it will only revise its decision “in the event of a substantial improvement in the overall political situation.”