Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Myanmar)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
နိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန
Official Seal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Agency overview
Formed17 March 1947 (1947-03-17) (Department), 25 May 1967 (1967-05-25) (Ministry)
Preceding agencies
  • Department of Foreign Affairs
  • Foreign Office
JurisdictionGovernment of Myanmar
HeadquartersOffice No (9), Naypyidaw
19°45′12″N 96°07′09″E / 19.7534296°N 96.1192157°E / 19.7534296; 96.1192157
Minister responsible
Child agencies
  • Political Department
  • ASEAN Affairs Department
  • Strategic Studies and Training Department
  • Protocol Department
  • International Organizations and Economic Department
  • Consular and Legal Affairs Department
  • Planning and Administrative Department
Websitewww.mofa.gov.mm

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Burmese: နိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန, [nàɪɰ̃ŋàɰ̃dʑájé wʊ̀ɰ̃dʑí tʰàna̰], 'MOFA') is a ministry in the government of Myanmar responsible for the country's foreign relations. It also operates embassies and consulates in 44 countries.[1] It is headed by Than Swe, appointed by military leader Min Aung Hlaing.[2]

List of ministers[edit]

No. Name Term of office Political party
Took office Left office Time in office

Pre-independence British Burma[edit]

Aung San 17 March 1946 19 July 1947 1 year, 124 days Military
U Nu 19 July 1947 1 August 1947 13 days Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
Lun Baw 1 August 1947 30 October 1947 90 days Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
Tin Htut 30 October 1947 16 August 1948 291 days Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League

Union of Burma (1948–1974)[edit]

1 Sao Hkun Hkio 16 August 1948 14 September 1948 29 days Independent
2 Kyaw Nyein 14 September 1948 31 March 1949 198 days Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
(1) Sao Hkun Hkio 31 March 1949 5 April 1949 5 days Independent
3 Aye Maung 5 April 1949 20 December 1949 249 days Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
(1) Sao Hkun Hkio 10 December 1949 28 October 1958 8 years, 322 days Independent
4 Thein Maung 28 October 1958 27 February 1959 122 days Military
5 Chan Tun Aung 27 February 1959 4 April 1960 1 year, 37 days Military
(1) Sao Hkun Hkio 4 April 1960 1 March 1962 1 year, 331 days Independent
6 Thi Han 2 March 1962 19 June 1969 7 years, 108 days Military
7 Maung Lwin 18 June 1969 4 August 1970 1 year, 47 days Military
8 Hla Han 4 August 1970 20 April 1972 1 year, 260 days Military
9 U Kyaw Soe 20 April 1972 2 March 1974 1 year, 316 days Military

Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1974–1988)[edit]

10 Hla Phone 2 March 1974 3 March 1978 4 years, 1 day Burma Socialist Programme Party
11 Myint Maung 3 March 1978 18 March 1980 2 years, 15 days Burma Socialist Programme Party
12 Lay Maung 18 March 1980 9 November 1981 1 year, 236 days Burma Socialist Programme Party
13 Chit Haling 9 November 1981 4 November 1985 3 years, 360 days Burma Socialist Programme Party
14 Ye Gaung 4 November 1985 18 September 1988 2 years, 319 days Burma Socialist Programme Party

Union of Myanmar (1988–2011)[edit]

15 Saw Maung 18 September 1988 17 September 1991 3 years, 0 days Military
16 Ohn Gyaw 18 September 1991 15 November 1998 6 years, 58 days Independent
17 Win Aung 15 November 1998 18 September 2004 5 years, 308 days Military
18 Nyan Win 18 September 2004 30 March 2011 6 years, 193 days Military

Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2011–present)[edit]

19 Wunna Maung Lwin 30 March 2011 30 March 2016 5 years, 0 days Union Solidarity and Development Party
20 Aung San Suu Kyi 30 March 2016 1 February 2021 4 years, 308 days National League for Democracy
(19) Wunna Maung Lwin 1 February 2021 1 February 2023 2 years, 0 days Union Solidarity and Development Party
21 Than Swe[3] 1 February 2023 Incumbent 1 year, 56 days

History[edit]

During World War II, the British administration retreated to India. In 1942, the foreign affairs is served by Defence Department. After World War II, Defence and External Affairs Department was established and directly served by counsellor of the governor.

The former Seal

In 1946, it was under the executive council and served by General Aung San, the vice chair of that council. Later, the Myanmar Representatives led by General Aung San and British Government agreed to act the foreign cases according to Myanmar.

The Department of Foreign Affairs was established on 17 March 1947 under General Aung San. The first secretary was Shwe Baw.

On 4 May 1948, it was renamed Foreign Office and the secretary became permanent secretary. On 25 May 1967, it became Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[4]

Departments and heads of departments[edit]

  • Director General:ASEAN Affairs Department: Dr. Khin Thidar Aye
  • Director General:Consular and Legal Affairs Department: Aung Kyaw Oo
  • Director General:Political Department: Aung Ko
  • Director General:International Organizations and Economic Department: Marlar Than Htike
  • Director General:Planning and Administrative Department: Kyaw Tin Shein
  • Director General:Protocol Department: Wunna Han
  • Director General:Strategic Studies and Training Department: Zaw Phyo Win
  • Director General:Union Minister's Office: Chan Aye

List of deputy ministers[edit]

  1. Hla Phone (1969–1974)
  2. U Win (1974–1978)
  3. Tin Ohn (1978–1983)
  4. Hla Shwe (1983–1985)
  5. Saw Hlaing (1985–1988)
  6. Ohn Gyaw (1989–1991)
  7. Khin Maung Win (1991–2004)
  8. Kyaw Thu (2003–2009)
  9. Maung Myint (2004–2012)
  10. Myo Myint (2011–2012)
  11. Thant Kyaw (2012–2016)
  12. Zinyaw (2012–2014)
  13. Tin Oo Lwin (2014–2016)
  14. Kyaw Tin (2016–2017)
  15. Kyaw Myo Htut (2021–present)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Ministry Of Foreign Affairs". Myanmar Online Data Information Network Solutions. 2002. Archived from the original on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
  2. ^ "Myanmar coup: who are the military figures running the country?". The Guardian. 2 February 2021. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  3. ^ "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ အမိန့်အမှတ်၊ ၆ / ၂၀၂၃ ၁၃၈၄ ခုနှစ်၊ တပို့တွဲလဆန်း ၁၂ ရက် (၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်) ပြည်ထောင်စုအစိုးရအဖွဲ့ ပြင်ဆင်ဖွဲ့စည်းခြင်း". Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  4. ^ "Ministry of Foreign Affairs". Myanmar National Portal. Archived from the original on 21 April 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

External links[edit]