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US diplomat in Myanmar for post-election talks

07 December 2010 23:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A senior US diplomat discussed Myanmar’s recent controversial election with opposition parties in Yangon on Tuesday on the first high-level US visit since the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, APA reports quoting Associated Press.
Joseph Yun, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is also expected to urge the military junta to free political prisoners and meet Suu Kyi on his trip, according to the US State Department.
Yun met representatives of ten political parties that won seats in the November 7 vote, according to Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force (NDF), an offshoot of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).
"He asked about the election and we explained to him about the advanced voting," he told AFP. The poll, which handed an overwhelming majority to the military and its political proxy, was marred by allegations of vote rigging.
Other subjects discussed included US economic sanctions, which the NDF asked to be "reconsidered" because the party felt they had not been successful.
NLD spokesman Nyan Win said Yun would hold talks with the Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi on Friday, the day he is due to leave the country.
The visit will also include meetings with "senior government officials" as well as non-governmental organisations, ethnic minority groups and members of civil society, a US embassy spokeswoman confirmed.
Yun will urge the authorities to "improve their human rights record" and "release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally", according to a US State Department spokesman.
"He will also review US government humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people," the official added. Burma is Myanmar’s former name.
Suu Kyi was freed from detention on November 13, days after a rare election which has been widely panned by international observers including US President Barack Obama, who said Myanmar’s "bankrupt regime" had stolen the vote.
His administration launched dialogue with Myanmar’s military rulers last year after concluding that Western attempts to isolate the regime had produced little success.
Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of the last 21 years locked up, has welcomed this engagement but warned against "rose-coloured glasses", saying greater human rights and economic progress were still needed.
She told CNN in an interview last month that Washington must be "keeping your eyes open and alert and seeing what is really going on, and where engagement is leading to and what changes really need to be brought about".
Suu Kyi’s NLD party boycotted the November 7 vote because of rules that appeared to exclude the dissident from participating and was subsequently disbanded by the junta.
The party won the previous vote in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
In November 2009 and May this year, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Kurt Campbell travelled to Myanmar to meet government officials and Suu Kyi, while she was still under house arrest.