China's foreign minister called for Myanmar's junta to hold talks with its opponents Sunday during his first visit to the country since the 2021 coup that plunged it into turmoil.

Beijing is one of the Myanmar military's few international allies, supplying arms and refusing to label the power grab that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government a coup.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China expects all parties in Myanmar to "adhere to rational consultation" and "strive to achieve political reconciliation".

Wang also told counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin that "China sincerely hopes that Myanmar will be politically and socially stable," according to a statement on the foreign ministry's website.

In Beijing's highest-profile visit to Myanmar since the putsch, Wang is attending a foreign ministers' meeting with representatives from Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam attending.

His comments follow a junta spokesman indicating last week that talks between the military and ousted leader Suu Kyi to resolve the chaos were "not impossible".

Myanmar's spiralling civil violence has sparked concern from its neighbours, with a regional envoy visiting to try to kickstart talks between the army and its opponents.

And with Western governments imposing sanctions following the coup and a violent crackdown on dissent, the isolated junta has turned increasingly to allies including China and Russia.

In May, a powerful Myanmar ethnic rebel group with close ties to China called for the junta to engage in dialogue with the opposition to end the escalating violence, which has seen Chinese business interests attacked.

Beijing said Iin April it would help safeguard Myanmar's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity "no matter how the situation changes".

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Dialogue with Suu Kyi 'not impossible' says Myanmar junta
Naypyidaw, Myanmar (AFP) July 1, 2022
Dialogue between Myanmar's junta and ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end the bloody crisis unleashed by the toppling of her government last year is "not impossible", a junta spokesman told AFP on Friday. The Southeast Asian nation has been in chaos since the putsch, with renewed fighting with ethnic rebel groups, dozens of "People's Defence Forces" springing up to fight the junta and the economy in tatters. Suu Kyi, 77, has been kept virtually incommunicado by the military and was recently tr ... read more