BANGKOK, Dec 8 — Thailand’s foreign minister has called on the ruling junta in Myanmar to peacefully hand over power after upcoming elections, Bangkok said Monday, after warning the military-run poll would not be credible.

Myanmar’s armed forces grabbed power in a 2021 coup, triggering a civil war, but has promised that the elections starting in three weeks will plot a path to peace and democracy.

Rights monitors warn the junta is crushing pre-poll dissent and analysts describe the vote as a ploy to disguise ongoing military rule.

The polls will not be held in swaths of the country beyond junta control.

The military overturned 2020 election results, making unproven claims of voter fraud, jailing democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and dissolving her National League for Democracy party that won by a landslide.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told reporters in Bangkok last month that the next vote in Myanmar will not be “free or credible” and predicted his country “won’t be in a position to recognise the elections”.

Sihasak met Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing in the capital Naypyidaw on Sunday, according to statements from both governments issued on Monday.

Bangkok’s top diplomat “expressed his hope that the upcoming election will be an important political transition and a part of the broader peace process”, the Thai foreign ministry said.

But as the leaders met Sunday, Myanmar state media ran a front-page story recounting a Min Aung Hlaing speech pledging the military would “maintain political leadership amid current circumstances”.

He said the military will be able to “gradually reduce its participation” in parliament “when democracy flourishes in the country, while there is no armed ethnic group”, according to The Global New Light of Myanmar.

Ethnic minority armed groups have waged on-and-off battles with Myanmar’s military since the country’s independence in 1948.

A comprehensive peace pact has proven elusive, even during the nation’s decade-long democratic thaw which saw Aung San Suu Kyi rise to power.

Violence has dramatically spiked since the 2021 coup.

After pro-democracy protests were shut down by security forces, activists quit the cities to form guerrilla units battling the military, often fighting alongside more experienced armed groups.

There is no official death toll for the civil war and estimates vary widely.

The Armed Conflict Location & Data non-profit, which collates media-reported fatalities, says more than 90,000 people have been killed on all sides since the coup. — AFP