Yangon: A top US official held rare talks with Myanmar's detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Wednesday as part of Washington's highest-level visit to the isolated army-ruled country in 14 years.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner met United States Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell for more than two hours at a hotel near Yangon's Inya lake, close to her home where she has been detained for much of the past two decades.
Later, at Yangon airport before the US delegation left the former Burma, Campbell said the United States wanted to improve relations with the government but the authorities needed to take concrete steps towards that end, too.
Describing the visit as an exploratory mission designed to explain the results of a US policy review towards Myanmar, he said the United States advocated ''strong support for human rights, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and the pursuit of democratic reform''.
''At every meeting, the United States underscored its strong commitment to see Burma as a place that respects the human rights of its people, promotes democracy, and abides by UN resolutions with regards to proliferation,'' he added.
Earlier, Suu Kyi and Campbell had posed for photographs together but did not answer reporters' questions.
Campbell, Washington's top official for East and Southeast Asia, met earlier today with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein.
On Tuesday, Campbell held talks with top junta officials in the remote new capital Naypyidaw, but he did not meet junta supremo Than Shwe, the ageing general who has tightly controlled the former Burma for the past 17 years.
Both sides seem ready to edge towards some sort of rapprochement.
Myanmar is keen to see Western sanctions lifted and has allowed Suu Kyi to raise the issue with diplomats in meetings that the junta normally forbids.
The United States has refused to lift its trade embargo on the resource-rich country and says dialogue would supplement sanctions rather than replace them. But it announced in September it would pursue deeper engagement to try to spur democratic reforms in Myanmar and is pressing for free, fair and inclusive elections next year.
''Towards that end,'' Campbell said, ''we urge the Burmese government to allow Aung San Suu Kyi more frequent interactions with stakeholders, especially the central executive committee of her own party.''
State TV reported that Campbell had asked the authorities to let Suu Kyi meet committee members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) before he met her.
That was agreed, MRTV said, but Suu Kyi pulled out of the meeting because one member, NLD vice chairman Tin Oo, 82, was excluded. He has been under house arrest since May 2003.
The NLD was the clear winner the last time polls were held in 1990. The military refused to recognise the NLD victory. The party has yet to say whether it will contest next year's vote.
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