Hillary Clinton to make landmark visit to Burma
NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- President Obama announced Friday that he is sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma next month, the first visit by a US secretary of state in more than 50 years.
The decision came after the White House concluded that the historically repressive government had taken important steps toward reform and that deeper US engagement would encourage continued progress.
"After years of darkness, we've seen flickers of progress," Obama said in announcing the decision from Indonesia, where he is attending a meeting of East Asian leaders.
Obama finalized the decision after talking with Nobel laureate and Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday evening from Air Force One as he flew to the Indonesian resort island of Bali from Australia. In a warm 20-minute conversation, their first, she gave him her take on the political situation in her country and said she welcomed a visit from Clinton, US officials said.
She encouraged the President to make clear that the US will work with the Burmese government if its leaders demonstrate that they are willing to work with the world and with her, the officials said.
The talk was not all politics -- at one stage, Suu Kyi asked Obama how his family's dog, Bo, was getting on, FOX News Channel reported.
American officials said the Burmese government first started to show progress in late summer after contested elections produced new leaders. They said the new president, Thein Shein, took a number of substantial steps that the US had requested, including beginning a dialogue with Suu Kyi.
Other steps included releasing about 200 political prisoners, relaxing media restrictions, passing new labor laws and enacting legislation that could open the political environment, they said.
Obama said, "Taken together, these are the most important steps toward reform in Burma that we've seen in years. Of course, there's far more to be done."
He added that it was unclear whether Burma was prepared to! fully t ransform itself. But the possibility for brighter future was "too important to ignore."
On her two-day visit, Clinton will travel to Naypyitaw, Burma's remote capital city, and Rangoon, and will meet with government officials, civil society leaders and democratic activists. She goes Dec. 1.
Obama was due to meet Shein as part of the ASEAN summit being held on Bali.
Obama's announcement came as Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) agreed to re-register as a party in Burma take part in upcoming special elections.
"We unanimously decide that the National League for Democracy (NLD) will register according to party registration laws, and we will take part in the coming by-elections," AFP quoted a statement by an NLD official as saying.
About 100 senior members of the NLD gathered in Rangoon earlier Friday to decide whether to stage a political comeback after boycotting elections last year -- the first to be held in Burma in 20 years.
The NLD won a landslide victory in polls in 1990 but the win was never recognized by the then-ruling junta. The party refused to take part in last November's vote mainly because of rules that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members. Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has spent most of the last two decades in detention, was released a few days after the polls. Since her release, she has been expected to make an entrance into the mainstream political process.
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