Senior US diplomats visit Myanmar

November 03, 2009|Associated Press

YANGON, Myanmar - Two senior US officials headed to Myanmar today for the highest-level visit in more than a decade and talks billed as a key pivot in Washington’s longtime stance of shunning the junta.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, and his deputy Scot Marciel were scheduled to meet senior Myanmar junta officials and detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during their two-day visit, US Embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

The trip is part of a new US policy that reverses the Bush administration’s isolation of Myanmar in favor of direct, high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962. Campbell will be the highest ranking US official to visit Myanmar since a Sept. 1995 trip by Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations.

Campbell will be continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

The United States has traditionally relied heavily on sanctions meant to force Myanmar’s generals to respect human rights, release imprisoned political activists and make democratic reforms. Washington has said it will maintain its tough political and economic sanctions against the regime until talks with Myanmar’s generals result in change.