RUSSIA BOOSTS MILITARY TIES WITH MYANMAR JUNTA CONDEMNED FOR COUP

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has told Myanmar's junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing that Moscow is committed to strengthening military ties with it, Russia's RIA news agency reported.

Rights activists have accused Moscow of legitimizing the junta, which seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, by continuing bilateral visits and arms deals, Olzhas Auyezov reported for Reuters.

"We are determined to continue our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect and trust that have been established between our countries," RIA quoted Shoigu as saying at a meeting on Tuesday.

Min Aung Hlaing was in the Russian capital to attend a security conference and had earlier met Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council. Defense ties between the two countries have grown in recent years with Moscow providing army training and university scholarships to thousands of soldiers, as well as selling arms to a military blacklisted by several Western countries.

Little light was shed on how cooperation between Russia and Myanmar may develop and whether Moscow would be willing to sell more military equipment there.

Since the army seized power and removed Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, troops have put down pro-democracy demonstrations and strikes and killed nearly 1,000 protesters, and arrested 6,000 critics.

Addressing a Moscow conference on Wednesday, Min Aung Hlaing repeated that the army took power by force because Suu Kyi's party won the election through fraud - an accusation rejected by the previous election commission and international monitors.

On June 22, armed guerrillas battled Myanmar troops in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city.

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