US ready to improve ties with Myanmar after rare talks

• Source: Global Times
• [10:54 November 06 2009]
• Comments

Washington is ready to boost ties with Myanmar but will not lift sanctions until there is progress on democracy, a US diplomat said Thursday.

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, held rare meetings with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and premier Thein Sein during a two-day visit that ended Wednesday.

"We are willing to move ahead in terms of bilateral relations but we are only going to do that if there is real progress," Marciel told a public forum yesterday in Bangkok, capital of neighboring Thailand.

The trip came two months after the administration of US President Barack Obama changed its policy on Myanmar, saying it would push for engagement with Myanmar because sanctions on their own had failed to bear fruit.

Marciel said the US wanted to see the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, improvements in human rights and the pursuit of democratic reform ahead of elections promised by the Myanmar government in 2010.

The Myanmar government has kept the 64-year-old in detention for most of the last two decades and extended her house arrest by 18 months in August after a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside house.

Asked about the elections, he said that it would be "very hard to say that is credible" if Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were not allowed to participate.

The NLD won Myanmar's last elections in 1990 but was refused recognition.

Marciel stressed that this dialogue within Myanmar – which has been under military rule since 1962 – needed to include the country's ethnic groups as well as the government and opposition.

The US diplomat said sanctions were "still a useful tool," and they would only consider lifting them if there was sustained progress.

"We are not going to do tit-for-tat, we're talking about a whole range of things we can do. We're not saying, 'If you do X, we'll do Y' – more, 'If you make progress, these are the sorts of areas we can move in,'" he added.

The trip was a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between high-ranking US and Myanmar officials.

AFP