Myanmar will once again cast a long shadow when Southeast Asian foreign ministers hold their annual retreat this week hoping to find a way to bring the junta in Yangon into line, analysts say.

Ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), dogged by persistent calls to pressure Myanmar to reform, will converge on the Indonesian resort island of Bali for informal day-long talks Thursday.

Myanmar “remains the focus of attention of the foreign ministers,” said Bantarto Bandoro, foreign policy analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Jakarta-based thinktank.

“The group’s policy pertaining to this matter will certainly be reviewed to see what can be done to improve the situation,” he told AFP.

The ministers are due to be briefed by Malaysian foreign minister and special Myanmar envoy Syed Hamid Albar following his delayed visit to the regime last month.

Myanmar agreed at last year’s ASEAN summit to invite Syed Hamid in the face of growing international pressure for evidence of democratic progress by Yangon, as well as embarrassment among some of its members over its inclusion in the bloc, which it joined in 1997.

The envoy visited in March after months of delay, meeting with Myanmar Prime Minister Soe Win and other officials, but he left a day early without being allowed to meet democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel peace laureate has spent most of the last 16 years in jail or under house arrest and has been a focal point of global outrage over the junta’s failure to reform.

Philippine foreign secretary Alberto Romulo said ahead of the retreat that ASEAN was moving closer to a charter, which is being drafted amid ongoing criticism over the group’s policy of non-interference in members’ affairs.

“Among other issues, we will exchange views and widen discourse on regional integration, the creation of an ASEAN charter, and the need to maintain ASEAN’s centrality and the continuing evolution of the regional and global geopolitical landscapes,” he said.

“We are one step closer to the charter, a charter that builds strength of our diversity and reinforces our commonalities.”

ASEAN officials have been reluctant to spell out how the charter could deal with Myanmar’s junta and its glacial progress on reform, instead politely stressing that it would promote democracy, human rights and obligations.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a researcher from the state-run Indonesian Institute of Sciences, agreed that Myanmar would be a hot topic, given that the president of host Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also visited Yangon in early March.

Yudhoyono’s visit “has given rise to much hope, domestically, regionally and internationally that the president, who has a military background, will be able to communicate better with the leaders of the military junta,” she said.

During his visit, Yudhoyono offered to help Myanmar’s generals work towards democracy, given Indonesia’s own recent transition to democracy following the downfall of dictator Suharto in 1998.

Anwar also said that the ASEAN charter was set to be discussed.

“In discussing the charter, a sanction mechanism for unacceptable or intolerable violations of agreements by member states should be discussed,” she said, adding that it may include Myanmar’s reluctance to follow ASEAN policy.

“ASEAN should no longer be based on gentlemen’s agreements with no binding rules and sanctions,” she said.

“If ASEAN wants to be consistent in becoming a community, then the Myanmar problem needs serious attention,” she warned.

Under mounting international pressure and smarting from sanctions imposed by Western nations, Myanmar’s generals proclaimed a seven-step “road map” to democracy in 2003, but they are still on the first step of drafting a new constitution.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won 1990 elections in a landslide but the result was never recognised by the military.