YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's ruling junta has rejected U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari's bid for three-way talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his visit, official media said on Tuesday.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was concerned by the lack of progress in Gambari's latest visit to Myanmar and his inability so far to meet the junta's top general.
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told Gambari a three-way meeting -- which Gambari hopes would include himself, Suu Kyi, and junta officials -- was premature and he warned that tougher international sanctions on the former Burma would only make matters worse.
"Myanmar will not bow to outside pressure. It will never allow any outside interference to infringe on the sovereignty of the state," state-run MRTV quoted Kyaw Hsan as saying during talks with Gambari in the new capital Naypyidaw.
The United Nations said Gambari "had very frank and extensive exchanges" with senior junta officials on the fourth day of a mission aimed at securing talks between Suu Kyi and the generals who crushed pro-democracy protests in late September.
He urged that dialogue "start without delay as an indispensable part of any process of national reconciliation, and the lifting of restrictions on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political detainees as the necessary steps to that end," the U.N. office in Yangon said in a statement.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
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