Yangon - US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell - the highest ranking American official to visit military-ruled Myanmar in 14 years - met Wednesday with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Campbell, accompanied by US Deputy Assistant Secretary Scot Marciel, met with Thein Sein in the capital Naypyitaw Wednesday morning before flying to Yangon where he was allowed a rare interview with Nobel laureate Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi, smiling and looking in good health, arrived at Inya Lake Hotel slightly before noon for talks with Campbell, whose two-day visit to Myanmar is part of US President Barack Obama's new policy of engagement with the pariah regime.
In a rare show of openness, local Myanmar journalists were invited to take photos of the arrivals of Campbell and Suu Kyi at the Inya Lake Hotel.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar independence hero Aung San, lives across the lake in her family's compound, where she has been under house detention for the past six years. She was recently sentenced to another 18 months under house detention, sufficient to keep her out of the picture when the junta stages a general election next year.
Campbell was expected to press the junta to release Suu Kyi, and some 2,100 other political prisoners, before the 2010 polls.
The US has indicated that it may consider lifting some of its economic sanctions on Myanmar, also called Burma, if the regime frees Suu Kyi and takes other measures to assure next year's election is "inclusive," free and fair.
On Tuesday, Campbell and Marceil met with Myanmar Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Science and Technology Minister U Thaung, and representatives of the Election Commission in Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Myanmar's old capital of Yangon.
They were not granted an audience with military supremo Senior General Than Shwe.
The US envoys also plan talks with leaders of Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the Committee Representing the People's Parliament and the pro-junta National Unity Party before departing Wednesday evening.
Marciel is to travel on to Thailand to participate in a public forum at Chulalongkorn University on US foreign policy towards Myanmar Thursday, and also brief Thai government officials.
Suu Kyi has welcomed Campbell's visit, seen as part of Obama's diplomatic initiative to engage with the pariah regime to encourage democratic reforms.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Suu Kyi's NLD party won a 1990 general election by a landslide, but has been denied power by the military for the past 19 years - of which she has spen
