Burma urged to join ASEAN Visa-free agreement ( Bangkok Post ) September 7, 2002


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Burma urged to join ASEAN Visa-free agreement

Source : The Bangkok Post

A meeting of immigration officials from 10 Asean countries agreed in principle yesterday to work towards making the region a visa-free zone for their citizens in a bid to promote intra-Asean tourism.

Speaking after the three-day meeting which ended yesterday, Ahmad Mokhtar Selat, Asean deputy secretary-general on corporate affairs, said the initiative would be signed in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh in November as part of an Asean Tourism Agreement.

Mr Ahmad said the visa-free travel agreement has been in place for six of the 10 Asean countries _ Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The remaining four _ Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam _ have been urged by the meeting to join the agreement, Mr Ahmad said.

He said the meeting also agreed to work together with other Asean bodies involved in combating transnational crimes, such as women and children smuggling and movements of terrorists into Asean countries. The two issues were high on the agenda of the meeting, which agreed immigration officials and other law enforcement agents would step up joint training and coordination in intelligence gathering. This included exchanges of information to safeguard the integrity of passports and security features.

To make relevant information more accessible to the public, especially visitors to the region, the immigration websites of member countries would soon be linked up via the Asean Secretariat based in Jakarta, Indonesia, he said.

Pol Maj-Gen Sothorn Vanitsathien, deputy chief of the Immigration Bureau, said he would be pleased if Thai nationals could travel to Laos, Burma and Cambodia without a visa.

The visa-free zone agreement would help strengthen not only tourism but also other areas of cooperation, he said.

Pol Maj-Gen Sothorn also said a regional approach would be needed to combat women and children smuggling.

``Thailand is now used as a transit country for international gangs to smuggle women and children to developed countries in Europe and America,'' he said.

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