Top Southeast Asian diplomats meeting in Cambodia's capital intensified efforts on Wednesday to stop the escalating violence in Myanmar, and to address other pressing — and often divisive — regional issues.

It is the first in-person meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has weakened economies and complicated diplomacy, and comes at a time of increased tensions between the United States and China, as well as global increases in food and energy prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. “ASEAN has to deal with challenges of different types and levels but never before, never like this year, have we been confronted at the same time with so many perils for the region and the world at large,” Cambodia's Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn told the delegates ahead of the meetings.

Cambodia currently holds the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, which also includes the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei in addition to Myanmar.

The military ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar in February 2021, and the country was asked not to send any political representative to the ASEAN meetings in response to the violence that has ensued.

In protest of that decision, Myanmar's military government said it would send no delegate at all, so is unrepresented in the talks, complicating efforts to push the country to comply with ASEAN's five-point plan for peace, which it has largely been ignoring.

“You're trying to solve the problem in Myanmar without talking to them,” conceded Cambodia's spokesperson for the meetings, Kung Phoak, a Foreign Ministry official who also serves as the group's special envoy to Myanmar.

“We are trying to talk to them, trying to explain to them, trying to express our frustration. But at the same time we also want to hear from them, what they think, how they can do more, so that we can make sure that the implementation of the five-point consensus is moving forward as fast as possible.”

Suu Kyi's ouster triggered widespread peaceful protests that were violently suppressed. They have evolved into an armed resistance and the country has slipped into what some UN experts characterize as a civil war.