November 5, 2009
BANGKOK 009 (AFP) - The United States is ready to improve ties with Myanmar if the ruling junta makes progress on democracy, a US diplomat said Thursday after the highest-level visit to the army-ruled nation in 14 years.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy Scot Marciel held a rare meeting with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Prime Minister Thein Sein during their two-day visit which ended Wednesday.
"This is early days, the first time we met most of these people. It's going to take some time to see how they respond," Marciel told reporters on Thursday in Bangkok, capital of neighbouring Thailand.
"We are willing to move ahead in terms of bilateral relations but we are only going to do that if there is real progress."
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 the military regime because sanctions on their own had failed to bear fruit.
Marciel stressed that the US wanted to see the release of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, improvements in human rights and the pursuit of democratic reform ahead of elections promised by the junta in 2010.
Asked about the elections, he said that it would be "very hard to say that is credible" if Suu Kyi was not released from house arrest and allowed to participate.
The ruling generals have 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 house.
"If there is to be a credible election that fundamentally changes the dynamic in the country, there needs to be dialogue and there needs to be participation," said Marciel.
The trip was a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between US and Myanmar officials, themselves the top-level US contact with the regime in nearly a decade.
Campbell and Marciel were the highest ranking US officials to travel to Myanmar -- formerly known as Burma -- since Madeleine Albright went as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 during Bill Clinton's presidency.
