BANGKOK — Southeast Asia’s joint effort to tackle global issues, such as an energy crisis caused by the war in the Middle East, is complicated by internal friction over tension between Thailand and Cambodia and civil war in Myanmar, a senior Cambodian diplomat said on Wednesday.
Asia is the world’s top oil-importing region, and the war has sent many of the 11 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) scrambling for alternatives to insulate their economies from the worst of the energy crisis triggered by the Middle East conflict.
“Asean needs to put our house in order and sort things out as soon as possible,” Kung Phoak, Cambodia’s envoy to the regional bloc, told Reuters ahead of an Asean summit in the Philippines this week.