Razaly's trip postponed due to coup attempt
Razaly's trip postponed due to coup attempt
Agence France-Presse, Yangon
Myanmar's military regime admitted on Tuesday they asked United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail to postpone his planned visit to Yangon this week because of a recent coup attempt.
"The Myanmar authorities concerned are quite preoccupied with issues that need immediate attention after the recent coup attempt," a government spokesman said.
"The UN envoy Mr. Razali Ismail has been informed and kindly requested to postpone his visit to Myanmar at a date convenient to both sides in the near future," he said in a statement.
The military government announced on March 7 that it had scuttled a coup plot mounted by the family of former dictator Ne Win who ruled the country until 1988.
The son-in-law and three grandsons of the 92-year-old autocrat were arrested while Ne Win and his daughter Sandar Win remain under heavy guard at their lakeside residence in Yangon.
A three-day mission by a four-member European Union delegation was allowed to go ahead last week, but on Monday the UN said Razali's trip due to start on Tuesday had "been postponed due to illness of the deputy foreign minister".
Sources in Yangon said deputy foreign minister Khin Maung Win was supposed to host Razali in what would have been his seventh visit to the country since his appointment in April 2000.
"We are disappointed to hear of this development, but we hope that the mission can be rescheduled as soon as possible in order to facilitate the national reconciliation process," said UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe on Monday.
During the trip, Razali had been expected to try to revitalize long-running national reconciliation talks between the junta and the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
He was scheduled to meet Myanmar's leader Senior General Than Shwe and intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt as well as various other government officials and NLD leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
Khin Nyunt failed to meet the European Union (EU) delegation that visited Myanmar last week, although such a meeting had been on their three-day schedule. No reason was given for his cancellation.
EU team leader Rafel Conde said he discussed the coup aftermath with other junta leaders who said "the matter was well in control and it would have no impact on the ongoing process of national reconciliation."
In an apparent gesture of goodwill, the government released batches of prisoners on all three days of the EU delegation's visit, including five members of Suu Kyi's pro-democracy NLD.
On Tuesday it released another 23 female prisoners, all either pregnant or with young children, "on humanitarian grounds", bringing to 295 the number of women released from jail since the end of last month.