U.S. envoy in rare talks with Suu Kyi, meets Myanmar PM

He was due to meet leaders of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and give a press conference before leaving Yangon on Wednesday evening for Bangkok.

The two-day trip is a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between U.S. and Myanmar officials, the highest-level U.S. contact with the regime in nearly a decade.

The Obama administration in September announced a dramatic change in U.S. policy because isolating Myanmar had failed, but said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said overnight that the current visit was the "the second step in the beginning of a dialogue with Burma."

Asked what Campbell discussed on Tuesday in talks with the information minister and local organisations, Kelly said: "They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue, but they were mainly in a listening mode."

September's talks had called for free and fair elections and the release of Suu Kyi, but also dealt with U.S. concerns about Myanmar's possible military links with nuclear-armed North Korea.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win has said the visit is the "start of direct engagement between the U.S. and Myanmar government" but added that the party was not expecting any "big change".

The junta refused to acknowledge the NLD's landslide win in Myanmar's last elections, in 1990. The United States toughened sanctions after the regime cracked down on protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007.

But in the first major sign of a thaw, Than Shwe in August held an unprecedented meeting with visiting U.S. senator Jim Webb, which yielded the release of John Yettaw, the American detained for swimming to Suu Kyi's house.

1|2

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email