Myanmar junta signs nuclear energy pact with Russia
Bangkok, July 13 (EFE).- Myanmar’s military junta and Russia’s state-run atomic energy agency have signed an agreement on peaceful nuclear energy cooperation, the official media reported on Wednesday.
The agreement was signed during junta head Min Aung Hlaing’s previously undisclosed visit to Russia that began on Sunday.
The coup leader was on his second international trip since overthrowing an elected government in a military coup on February 1, 2021, and declaring himself Prime Minister of the Southeast Asian country.
Min Aung Hlaing met with Alexey Likhachev, director-general of the state-run Rosatom in Moscow on Monday “to talk about cooperation in the sectors beneficial to peoples of both countries in atomic energy technological cooperation arena,” the military-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
Min Aung Hlaing also met with Dmitry Rogozin, Director-General of the state space corporation Roscosmos, to discuss advancements in science and technology development, as well as human resource development.
He also met with Alexander Mikheev, CEO of Rosoboronexport, Russia’s major state arms export organization.
The two nations have deepened diplomatic and commercial ties, despite the fact that the United States and its western allies have isolated them with increasing sanctions in response to Myanmar’s military takeover and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Myanmar’s coup brought to an end a decade of nascent democracy led by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi is presently imprisoned in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital.
According to a report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the military regime has killed over 2,000 citizens and jailed over 14,500 pro-democracy activists since the 2021 coup.
The use of lethal force and violent repression to silence the voices for democracy has once again become the country a pariah state.
The previous military dictatorship, which governed the nation with an iron hand from 1962 to 2011, failed to announce its intentions to build nuclear power as it neared another pariah state, North Korea. EFE
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