UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Myanmar coup situation

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday on the situation in Myanmar, following the coup by the country's military, according to an official calendar of events.

The meeting, to be held by videoconference, will take place behind closed doors, says the calendar -- which was approved Monday by council members.

The UN special envoy for Myanmar, Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener, is expected to brief the council on the latest developments at the meeting.

Myanmar's military seized power on Monday in a bloodless coup, detaining democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top politicians -- sparking an international outcry.

Britain, which holds the rotating Council presidency for the month of February, had long planned to hold a meeting on Myanmar this week, but moved it up given the circumstances.

The country's UN envoy, Barbara Woodward, told reporters that she hoped to have "as constructive a discussion as possible on Myanmar and look at a range of measures, with the idea of respecting the people's will expressed in the vote and releasing civil society leaders."

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"We'll want to consider measures that will move us towards that end," Woodward said, while noting there were no specific measures in mind at the current time.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won November elections in a landslide, but the military now claims those polls were tainted by fraud.

Earlier, at his daily press conference, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "What is important is that the international community speak with one voice."