U.N.'s Ban to meet again with Myanmar supremo over Suu Kyi
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets again with Myanmar junta supremo on Saturday when he expects a verdict on whether he will be allowed to visit detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ban requested the visit during a rare meeting with Myanmar Senior General Than Shwe and his top advisers on Friday, telling them that he wanted to meet with Suu Kyi in person. But he left the two-hour session with no clear answer.
"The secretary-general will meet again the senior general tomorrow morning," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters.
Several senior U.N. officials said on condition of anonymity that Ban was expecting a brief answer to his request to meet Suu Kyi and to five proposals Ban made during his meeting with the reclusive junta leader and his top advisers.
But it was not clear whether they would agree to allow the secretary-general to see the 64-year-old Nobel laureate, who has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention, mostly under house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon.
Suu Kyi, who has spearheaded the campaign for democracy for two decades in the former Burma, is currently on trial for breaching a security law, which critics say is an attempt by the generals to keep her out of multi-party elections to be held next year.
After his meeting with Than Shwe in the country's remote new capital, Naypyidaw, Ban told reporters that the senior general had reacted coolly to his request to see Suu Kyi.
"He told me that she is on trial. I told him that I wanted to meet her in person," he said.
U.N. officials had no comment on the delay of Suu Kyi's trial, which was adjourned on Friday until July 10 because of a clerical error by the court, according to her lawyer.
JUNTA PROMISES FAIR ELECTION
The secretary-general, who is one of the few top world figures the Myanmar supremo is willing to meet with, also presented Than Shwe with a number of proposals to help the development of democracy.
He said those proposals included the release of the more than 2,000 political prisoners ahead of next year's election, opening of real dialogue between the government and opposition, and creating conditions conducive to free and fair elections.
Than Shwe promised the election would not be rigged.
"I was assured that Myanmar's authorities will make sure that this election will be held in a fair and free and transparent manner," Ban told reporters.
A U.N. official said they urged the junta to accept international monitors.
Ban himself described his current second visit to Myanmar as a "very tough mission" and made clear he was not expecting radical changes overnight in a country that has been ruled by a military junta for 47 years.
He had expressed concern his visit could be used by the ruling generals for propaganda purposes but he decided to go anyway, hoping his knack for quiet diplomacy would persuade the generals to compromise, as they did last year when Ban convinced them to lift humanitarian aid restrictions after Cyclone Nargis.
Analysts say Ban may have been given some indication by the generals, or by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari after his trip last week, that his visit might bring some kind of positive result.
The secretary-general is also expected to give a speech in Yangon on Saturday afternoon, in which he will outline his vision for a democratic Myanmar.
U.N. officials said they expected some 500 people would attend the speech - among them employees of local and international non-government organizations, diplomats, opposition politicians and government officials.
(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
