Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull walks behind Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi during the Leaders Welcome and Family Photo at the one-off summit of 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Sydney, Australia, March 17, 2018. Picture taken March 17, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray
SYDNEY, March 18 (Reuters): Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at length about her country's troubled western state of Rakhine at a Sydney conference on Sunday and appealed to Southeast Asian neighbours for help, Australia's prime minister said.
"We discussed the situation in Rakhine state at considerable length today," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters at the end of a summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia, much of it held behind closed doors.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the matter comprehensively at some considerable length herself... She seeks support from ASEAN and other nations to provide help from a humanitarian and capacity-building point of view," he said, using a Burmese honorific.
Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, was not immediately available for comment on Turnbull's comments.
Turnbull did not tell reporters whether Suu Kyi gave details of what support she was seeking or whether she spoke specifically about violence against the Rohingya, however ASEAN's Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance has been providing some aid since October.
U.N. officials say nearly 700,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to Bangladesh after militant attacks on Aug. 25 last year sparked a crackdown, led by security forces, in Rakhine that the United Nations and United States have said constitutes ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar denies the charges and has asked for "clear evidence" of abuses by security forces.
Since coming to power in 2016, Suu Kyi - who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle for democracy - has failed to condemn the violence against the Rohingya. Australia's attorney general on Saturday rejected a private bid by activist lawyers to have Suu Kyi face charges for crimes against humanity, saying she has diplomatic immunity.
