5 November 2009 / AP, YANGON
A US State Department official met Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday in a visit that marked the highest-ranking talks between an American and Myanmar’s detained opposition leader in 14 years.
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, greeted Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his lakeside hotel in Yangon where they met privately for two hours, said US Embassy spokesman Richard Mei. Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995. Their two-day trip, which included talks with senior junta officials, stems from a new US policy that reverses the Bush administration’s isolation of Myanmar in favor of dialogue with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962. The topic of talks with Suu Kyi was not immediately known, but the meeting offered the Nobel Peace Prize laureate her first trip in years to outside the confines of her dilapidated home and a nearby government guesthouse, where she has met UN and junta officials in the past.
