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Suu Kyi proposes talks at the highest level

SINGAPORE: Myanmar’s celebrated democracy campaigner and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has proposed that the ruling military junta initiate unconditional talks with her at the highest level for a time-specific conclusion of the ongoing dialogue between the two sides.

This was indicated by Ms. Suu Kyi when she was allowed by the governing State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to meet the members of the Central Executive Committee of her National League for Democracy (NLD) at a designated location in Yangon on Wednesday. She remains under house arrest, though.

NLD Spokesperson U. Nyan Win told The Hindu over the telephone from Yangon, after that meeting, that she had conveyed her proposal to the SPDC through its Liaison Officer, who met her four times so far in as many months.

SPDC Chief Than Shwe had appointed the Liaison Officer for holding talks with her in the context of the United Nations initiative to help Myanmar move towards democracy. The U.N. intervened after Buddhist monks, students and other activists rose in revolt against the junta last September. The SPDC used force to put down the uprising.

The SPDC should facilitate such a meeting at the “highest” level, she proposed, indicating that the SPDC should engage her and the NLD at the level of Senior General Than Shwe himself.

She suggested that the SPDC and the NLD could then discuss substantive issues, with “no prior conditions from both sides.”

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