Thailand’s foreign minister is planning to visit Myanmar on 12 November after pressing his counterpart to prevent military operations near their shared border from affecting Thai territory.
Sihasak Phuangketkeow said he wanted to discuss both the impact of the fighting on Thailand and the need to reduce violence in Myanmar before a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Philippines.
The planned trip follows a telephone call on 3 November between Sihasak, who is also Thailand’s deputy prime minister, and Myanmar Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe. Thailand’s foreign ministry said Sihasak raised concern about fighting spilling over the border and asked Myanmar to avoid operations close enough to affect Thailand.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said Tin Maung Swe acknowledged the concerns and would pass them to the relevant authorities. The ministry did not announce an agreement to halt operations or indicate that the fighting had diminished.
Concerns on both sides of the border
In Thailand’s Mae Sot district, a woman was injured by shrapnel on 29 October when explosions connected to fighting in Myanmar struck a house on the Thai side. She was taken to hospital, while other residents left the area to seek shelter. Thailand’s army said its troops fired warning shots in response.
Clashes had taken place across the border in Myawaddy township, in Myanmar’s Karen State. It is not clear which force fired the projectile that injured the woman.
A local administrative official said an air strike on 31 October in a different part of the border region had damaged buildings in Mae Sam Laep, in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province. The official said Myanmar’s military had dropped bombs on a Karen National Union position across the Salween River, with blast effects and fragments damaging roughly 17 homes and public buildings on the Thai side.
Local authorities said a health centre and a child development centre were among the public facilities affected, and that some families stayed farther inland. They also prepared a school as an emergency refuge for Thai residents and designated separate reception sites for people fleeing Myanmar.
On 2 November, Thailand’s chief of defence forces, General Ukrit Buntanont, summoned Myanmar’s military attaché in Bangkok and urged caution over border operations. Thailand’s military headquarters said the discussion addressed the safety of Thai citizens and their property.
Regional diplomacy
The proposed visit would last one day. A possible meeting with Myanmar’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, was still being arranged.
The minister has said a reduction in violence could help create conditions for dialogue. He also linked progress on regional concerns to the discussions ASEAN leaders could hold about Myanmar’s future participation in the bloc’s meetings. That is a position Thailand intends to take into the talks, not a decision by ASEAN to restore high-level representation.
Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup, and its leaders have not been invited to ASEAN’s high-level meetings since that year. The regional group’s Five-Point Consensus calls for an end to violence, dialogue among the parties, a mediating envoy and humanitarian assistance. ASEAN leaders said in 2025 that there had been a lack of substantive progress in implementing it.
The Thai initiative follows a separate visit to Myanmar by the Philippines’ foreign secretary and ASEAN’s Myanmar envoy, Theresa Lazaro. She met Tin Maung Swe on 29 October during a humanitarian mission and discussed humanitarian access and the consensus.
The Thai visit remains planned, and the outcome of any meetings is not yet known. For communities close to the frontier, the immediate issue raised by Thailand is whether military activity in Myanmar can be kept from causing further harm across the border.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
