Suu Kyi optimistic after talks

2009-10-16 16:02

Yangon - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed optimism on Friday about recent meetings with a Myanmar junta official, saying she hoped to keep talks going to pursue a new era of co-operation, her lawyer said.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner was escorted twice this month from her tightly guarded lakeside home into rare, unannounced meetings with Relations Minister Aung Kyi at a government guesthouse in Yangon.

The talks followed a letter Suu Kyi sent to junta chief Senior Gen Than Shwe last month, saying she was willing to co-operate with the junta in having international sanctions lifted against the military-ruled country.

Suu Kyi had previously welcomed sanctions as a way to pressure the junta to achieve political reconciliation with the pro-democracy movement.

Her letter also proposed that she meet with Western diplomats to discuss the measures. She was granted a meeting with Western diplomats on October 9.

Suu Kyi and the junta official "have not yet discussed sanctions at this stage. They are discussing steps to be taken in connection with Daw Suu's letter," said her lawyer Nyan Win, after meeting with Suu Kyi on Friday. "Daw" is a term of respect.

"She was optimistic about the meetings but hoped that there will be more," said Nyan Win.

Nyan Win said he hoped the junta would grant Suu Kyi the second request in her letter - a meeting with members of her National League for Democracy party.

Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the past 20 years, and in August she was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American at her home earlier this year.

Her detention means she cannot participate in elections scheduled for next year, the first in Myanmar in two decades. Her party swept the last elections in 1990, but the results were never honored by the military, which has ruled the country since 1962.

- AP