A draft statement circulating the day before a Southeast Asian leaders' summit on the Myanmar crisis included the release of political prisoners as one of its "consensus" points, said three sources familiar with the document.
But in the final statement at the end of Saturday's meeting, the language on freeing political prisoners had been unexpectedly watered down and did not contain a firm call for their release, two of the sources said.
The absence of a strong position on this issue caused dismay among human rights activists and opponents of the coup, fueling criticism by them that the meeting had achieved little in the way of reining in the country's military leaders.
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