Burma's Suu Kyi in junta meeting

BBC News : 11^th Jan 2008

Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has had another meeting with an official from Burma's ruling junta.

Witnesses said Ms Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, spent about one hour in talks at a military building in Rangoon.

It is thought she met Aung Kyi, the labour minister appointed as a liaison last year amid global outrage at the military regime's repression.

If confirmed, it would be the fourth time the pair have held talks.

Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), said last month that meetings with the junta had so far yielded little.

The country's generals came under sustained international pressure late last year after brutally suppressing peaceful demonstrations.

The EU and US both introduced a raft of new sanctions and UN diplomats engaged in frantic diplomacy in a bid to rein in the generals.

But most Asian leaders have been reluctant to criticise the regime, and there have been few signs of genuine reform in Burma.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7182574.stm

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Myanmar's Suu Kyi meets with junta

AP: 11^th Jan 2008

YANGON, Myanmar - Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a representative of Myanmar's ruling junta Friday for the first time in nearly two months, a government official said.

Western nations and the United Nations have pressed the military to open a sustained dialogue with Suu Kyi to bring about democratic reforms following the brutal suppression of anti-regime demonstrations last fall.

An official, who requested anonymity since he was not authorized to speak to the press, said a government-appointed liaison official, Aung Kyi, met with Suu Kyi for about an hour. It was their fourth meeting, and the first since Nov. 19.

No details of the meeting were immediately available.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department's No. 3 official, Nicholas Burns, urged the junta to begin talks with opposition leaders and release political prisoners.

Burns wrote in The Washington Post that the leaders in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and their "policies are the greatest threat to Burma's unity, stability and prosperity."

The United States supports U.N. efforts to start a national dialogue in Myanmar, Burns wrote.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_suu_kyi_1