Wed Oct 3, 10:12 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The United States or the European Union must spearhead an initiative with China, India, Japan and ASEAN states to prod Myanmar's ruling junta to end its brutal crackdown on dissent and embrace democratic reforms, experts say.

Two decades after the junta grabbed power, the Western policy of imposing trade, investment and diplomatic sanctions and the Asian strategy of constructive engagement have failed to bring about reforms in the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation.

The military generals, who suppressed a peaceful uprising in 1988 by killing an estimated 3,000 civilians, again crushed a peaceful pro-democracy uprising led by Buddhist monks last week, with at least 13 people reported killed and about 1,000 detained.

As the United Nations faces an uphill task of bringing about reconciliation, experts say the time has come for an end to the sanctions versus engagement battle, and to build an international consensus aimed at giving incentives for the junta to reform and increasing the price it will pay if it fails to change.

Although this may seem like an unlikely proposition, it has more potential today than ever before, said Michael Green, a former top Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, and Derek Mitchell, an Asian expert at the Pentagon during the Bill Clinton administration.

One way to proceed, they said, would be for Washington to lead a group that also included the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, India and Japan to develop a road map for Myanmar's junta with "concrete goalposts."

It should lay out development assistance and other benefits the junta will enjoy if it pursued true political reform and national reconciliation and the costs it would suffer if it continued to be intransigent, they said in a joint paper following the recent turmoil in Myanmar.

The junta should be given assurances of regional support for Myanmar's territorial integrity and security and the five parties' commitment to provide, under the appropriate conditions, the necessary assistance, they said.

"The current approach -- with each party pursuing its individual policy with an eye as much toward competing with the others for its own advantage as toward promoting change in Burma (Myanmar) -- has clearly played into the junta's hands," Green and Mitchell said.

Washington, on its part, will also need to relax its strict prohibition on official high-level contact with the military generals, they said.

But Mohan Malik, an Asian expert at the Hawaii-based Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, said the European Union (EU) instead of the United States should play a lead role in such a diplomatic effort.

The Chinese and Myanmar's junta are reportedly suspicious of any Washington involvement, he said.

He said during his visits to Asia, he was told by various parties that "there will be no takers for a lead US role mainly because of China's hostility and the (Myanmar junta's) suspicion about US involvement."

The US invasion of Iraq also had damaged US credibility in Asia, Malik said.

"The EU could take the lead and sponsor this with the involvement of China, Japan, India and Thailand or Indonesia because the EU won't invoke any concerns that the US participation involvement would invoke from the Chinese and the (junta)," he said.

China is the biggest ally of and top weapons supplier to Myanmar.

Another diplomatic offensive to rein in the Myanmar problem could come from China, India, Japan and the 10 ASEAN states with "an Asian solution to an Asian problem but the push has still to come from outside the region."