Detained leader meets Burma junta official
Burma’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met today with an official from the ruling junta.
The session was expected to precede her first meeting in three years with leaders of her opposition party.
Suu Kyi – who has been under house arrest in Rangoon for 12 of the past 18 years – was driven from her heavily guarded home in a car with tinted windows to a nearby government guest house to meet with the official, Aung Kyi.
Aung Kyi was appointed the junta’s “minister for relations” with Suu Kyi last month amid global outrage over the junta’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
The junta unexpectedly announced yesterday that Suu Kyi had clearance to meet with party officials from her National League for Democracy.
The statement came just hours after the UN’s Burma envoy Ibrahim Gambari ended a six-day mission to broker negotiations between the military regime and pro-democracy leaders.
