US to send mission to Myanmar
Source ::: AFP
Washington: The United States said yesterday it would send a rare mission to Myanmar in the coming weeks as it pursues engagement with the reclusive regime.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said the trip would follow up on his talks last month with a senior official in New York — the highest-level US contact with the military regime in nearly a decade.
“We intend to go to Burma in the next few weeks for a fact-finding mission,” Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Campbell did not state who would take part in the trip to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. A State Department spokeswoman had no immediate information on the mission.
“During our trip, we will talk to the Burmese government, representatives of the ethnic nationalities and the democratic opposition including the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi and others,” he said.
The National League for Democracy, headed by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, swept the nation’s last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
The junta has kept Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, under house arrest for most of the past two decades. President Barack Obama’s administration has sought to engage US adversaries including Iran, Cuba and Sudan.
The Obama administration, in a policy review, concluded that longstanding US policy of isolating Myanmar had said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.
In August, Myanmar’s military leader Than Shwe held an unprecedented meeting with a visiting US senator, Jim Webb, a leading advocate of engaging the junta.
Source ::: AFP
Washington: The United States said yesterday it would send a rare mission to Myanmar in the coming weeks as it pursues engagement with the reclusive regime.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said the trip would follow up on his talks last month with a senior official in New York — the highest-level US contact with the military regime in nearly a decade.
“We intend to go to Burma in the next few weeks for a fact-finding mission,” Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Campbell did not state who would take part in the trip to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. A State Department spokeswoman had no immediate information on the mission.
“During our trip, we will talk to the Burmese government, representatives of the ethnic nationalities and the democratic opposition including the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi and others,” he said.
The National League for Democracy, headed by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, swept the nation’s last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
The junta has kept Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, under house arrest for most of the past two decades. President Barack Obama’s administration has sought to engage US adversaries including Iran, Cuba and Sudan.
The Obama administration, in a policy review, concluded that longstanding US policy of isolating Myanmar had said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.
In August, Myanmar’s military leader Than Shwe held an unprecedented meeting with a visiting US senator, Jim Webb, a leading advocate of engaging the junta.
