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Thursday 8 November 2007

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi agrees to talks with Burma junta

The Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, today said she was ready to cooperate with the country's military government, according to a statement released on her behalf by the UN.

The apparent offer of cooperation by Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention, came at the end of a six-day visit to Burma by the UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari.

In a statement released by the envoy, she said: "In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to cooperate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success."

Mr Gambari said: "We now have a process going which would lead to substantive dialogue between the government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a key instrument in promoting national reconciliation in an all-inclusive manner."

Mr Gambari's efforts to broker a compromise between the government and the opposition follow the violent crackdown against Buddhist monks and other demonstrators in mass protests that caught the junta by surprise.

It is unclear whether the government is responding to the street protests but state television announced that General Aung Kyi, appointed as the junta's go-between with Ms Suu Kyi, would meet her tomorrow for the second time.

She would also be allowed to meet leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) the same day for the first time since she was last detained more than four years ago.

The government would also "make efforts steadfastly for national reconciliation with the correct cooperation of the UN secretary general", national television said.

The UN said Mr Gambari would return to Burma in the next few weeks and continue talks "to achieve the goals which we all share; prosperity, democracy and full respect for human rights".

Mr Gambari is to brief members of the security council next week on his second visit to Burma since the biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years broke out in September. At least 10 people were killed in the resulting crackdown; dissidents put the number of dead much higher.

"The sooner such a dialogue can start, the better for Myanmar," Mr Gambari is reported to have said to Ms Suu Kyi.

Experts, however, were sceptical at the junta's willingness to open a dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi, who is viewed with intense dislike by Burma's military strongman, General Than Shwe. They point to repeated hints by the junta in the past of its willingness to release Ms Suu Kyi, only for the hopes to come to nothing.

"There's no doubt in my mind that this regime has no intention of cooperating with Gambari or of starting a process of genuine political dialogue," one Rangoon-based diplomat told Reuters. "It's beyond them."

Ms Suu Kyi's NLD won the 1990 elections by a landslide, but the military, which has ruled in one form or another since a 1962 coup, blocked her from power.

Under military rule, Burma has become increasingly impoverished despite its bright prospects when it became independent of Britain in 1948.

The economy, which is rich in natural resources, has stagnated after attempts at autarchy under the "Burmese way to socialism", corruption and recent western sanctions.

Guardian Unlimited


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