UN Security Council holds closed-door meeting on Myanmar with two special envoys

The U.N. Security Council convened a closed-door meeting to discuss the situation in Myanmar at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday.

Julie Bishop, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Myanmar, and Othman Hashim, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 2025 Chair Malaysia’s Special Envoy, briefed the Security Council on Dec. 22. No details about what was discussed were shared with the media.

The U.K., which is the penholder on Myanmar at the U.N. Security Council, along with South Korea, requested the Security Council meeting. James Kariuki, the U.N. ambassador to the U.K., issued a warning on Dec. 22 that the regime’s 2025-26 elections could worsen violence and complicate long-term solutions to bring peace and stability to Myanmar, which erupted into a nationwide civil war following the uprising to the military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. 

The U.K. echoed the ASEAN Five Point Consensus that all violence against civilians must cease and that talks between all relevant parties are required for any election in Myanmar to be considered free and fair. 

Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., wrote to the U.N. Secretary-General, outlining the regime’s increased human rights violations against civilians since the 2021 coup that ousted the National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. 

Both State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, along with 22,000 other political prisoners, have been held in regime detention since 2021. 

Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun’s letter describes the death of at least 33 civilians by airstrikes on a hospital in Mrauk-U Township, Arakan State, on Dec. 10. 

“Nearly 22 million people in Myanmar desperately need humanitarian aid, while over 3.6 million people have been displaced and nearly half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line,” Kyaw Moe Tun wrote.  

The U.N. Security Council met behind closed-doors to discuss the situation in Myanmar as the regime elections are set to begin on Dec. 28. This is also the first meeting since the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2669, which called for a halt to all violence, on Dec. 21, 2022. 

Since Feb. 1, 2021, a total of 7,625 people have been killed and 30,169 have been arrested with 22,668 currently in detention, according to data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).