CEBU, Philippines- Southeast Asian foreign ministers have agreed to a virtual meeting with their Myanmar counterpart, ASEAN's secretary-general said on Thursday, as the country seeks to re-engage with the regional bloc after five years on the sidelines.

In an interview during the ASEAN summit in the Philippines, Kao Kim Hourn said Myanmar, which has been gripped by civil war, had indicated it wanted to normalize ties with the 11-member grouping, but its neighbours want to see progress on de-escalation, dialogue and aid access.

"It's very clear that today the ASEAN foreign ministers agree that there will be an engagement with Myanmar, with the foreign minister of Myanmar, that they will have a virtual meeting coming up in the very near future," he told Reuters.

Myanmar's leadership has been barred from top ASEAN meetings since a 2021 army coup that unleashed a lethal crackdown on dissent and spiralled into civil war.

The military has been widely accused of atrocities against the civilian population, including air strikes, during its campaign to crush an armed rebellion. It denies wrongdoing.

NEW GOVERNMENT, SAME LEADERSHIP

A new, nominally civilian government took office in Myanmar last month following an election won overwhelmingly by a pro-military party in the absence of viable opposition, with coup leader and former junta boss Min Aung Hlaing now president.

ASEAN has not recognised the election or established conditions for him to attend its summits. The decision to hold talks with Myanmar's top diplomat comes after Thailand's foreign minister told Reuters on Tuesday he would propose the idea, with the aim of building consensus within the ASEAN for greater engagement.

Kao Kim Hourn also said the possibility of creating a special envoy for Myanmar with a remit beyond one year was part of an ongoing discussion, with some "adverse issues" that needed to be addressed. He did not elaborate.

'REAL PROGRESS' ON CODE

He also said momentum was building on a long-anticipated code of conduct between ASEAN and Beijing over the South China Sea, and the bloc was sticking to its target of completing it within this year.

The code, an idea first agreed to in 2002, has made little progress, with competing interests at play, including whether it will have an enforcement mechanism, or be based on The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of several ASEAN states, "I think there is real progress in negotiations," Kao Kim Hourn said. "We are able to reach more consensus on key issues."

"Now you see very concretely these developments," he said.

(Reporting by Mikhail Flores; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by David Stanway)