UN envoy meets junta leader

Senior UN official Ibrahim Gambari met detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling junta's top leader yesterday during a visit to the military-run Southeast Asian nation.

Gambari's meeting with Suu Kyi, which followed an audience with junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe, lasted about an hour at a government guest house in Yangon.

There was no comment from UN officials, but they released photos of the 61-year-old Suu Kyi, believed to be the first seen by the outside world since her latest detention began in May 2003.

They show the Nobel Peace laureate in a purple shirt and a traditional, floral-print wrap called a longgyi, standing next to a dark-suited Gambari.

Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) which won 1990 elections only for the military to ignore the result, has been under some form of detention for more than 10 of the last 17 years.

On his last visit in May, Gambari was the first outsider in more than two years to meet Suu Kyi, confined to her lakeside villa with her telephone disconnected and few visitors allowed by the military.

Yesterday evening a three-car convoy arrived at Gambari's guest house, a short drive from Suu Kyi's home. The cars with blacked-out windows left about one hour later.

Earlier, the Nigerian envoy had flown to the new jungle capital, Nay Pyi Taw, for talks with Than Shwe and other senior generals. Details of their discussions are not known.

State media has reported little of Gambari's visit at a time when the regime is under scrutiny by the UN Security Council, which held its first official session on Myanmar in September. Washington has said it would press for a Council resolution to put pressure on a regime it calls an "outpost of tyranny".

During his four-day visit, Gambari has pressed for the release of political prisoners, better access for humanitarian aid, and an "all-inclusive and transparent" roadmap to democracy.

Before meeting Suu Kyi, Gambari heard from leaders of her party. "We told him that we want to solve the problems through dialogue," NLD spokesman U Myint Thein told Reuters.

The NLD is boycotting the constitution-drafting National Convention, the first stage in the junta's seven-step democracy roadmap announced in 2003, while Suu Kyi is detained.

Critics dismiss the Convention as a smokescreen for the military to entrench more than four decades of rule.

Another goal of the visit is to improve aid access to Myanmar, where activists say 500,000 refugees in eastern jungle conflict zones are cut off from international aid.

The US Campaign for Burma says more than 3,000 villages have been burned or relocated in a government offensive launched last year in eastern Myanmar, where civil war has raged for decades.