Thai visa agreement delayed to next year
By Nyan Lynn Aung | Sunday, 08 December 2013
The signing of a planned visa exemption program between Myanmar and Thailand is likely to be delayed until early next year, a government official said last week.
The agreement, which was proposed by Myanmar, would enable those arriving by air in either country to attain a free 14-day visa on arrival. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was expected to sign the agreement in November during a ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries but she was forced to cancel the visit because of political turmoil at home.
U Aung Lynn, director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ ASEAN Affairs Department, said Thailand is also not yet ready to sign the agreement but declined to comment further.
“We are waiting but we can’t get it signed yet because the Thailand side still has some internal processes to complete,” he said. “When they are ready we will sign it.”
Myanmar has proposed setting up a visa exemption program with all of its Southeast Asian counterparts to enable their citizens to visit easily when it hosts ASEAN meetings in 2014 and hoped to have the agreements in place by the end of the year.
However, it has deals with only two countries: Laos, which signed on in 2009, and Vietnam, which agreed to the visa exemption program on September 26.
While Singapore is considering the proposal, Cambodia and Indonesia have agreed to sign a deal soon, the ministry said.
U Aung Htoo, a deputy director general in the department, said one issue for Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore is the potential impact on migrant worker inflows if they agree to issue visas to all air arrivals from Myanmar.
Thai visa agreement delayed to next year
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