UN envoy Razali cannot sway junta to free Suu Kyi
UN envoy Razali cannot sway junta to free Suu Kyi
Aung Hla Tun, Reuters, Yangon
United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail failed to win opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest during his three-day mission to Myanmar, an Asian diplomat said on Thursday.
"She wants to be released, but the special envoy did not hear any indication about her release," the diplomat told Reuters after Razali briefed foreign diplomats before leaving Yangon.
Razali has been tight-lipped during his mission to free Suu Kyi and revive crippled reconciliation talks.
"He said he did not get any tangible results, but his discussion with the new prime minister was sincere," the Asian diplomat said.
Another diplomat who attended the briefing said: "We can't expect an immediate breakthrough".
Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbors stepped up pressure with Cambodia calling for Suu Kyi's release before the issue overshadows a regional summit next week.
Razali told reporters only that he held "useful" talks with General Than Shwe, head of the ruling military council.
"I have met the chairman and this has been very useful for me," Razali said after the one-hour meeting. He also met new Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who is also head of military intelligence.
The veteran Malaysian diplomat saw Suu Kyi, 58, on Wednesday at her lakeside home in Yangon where she is under house arrest after surgery that followed more than three months in detention at a secret location.
Razali spent less than two hours with Suu Kyi and gave no details of his meeting with the democracy icon.
She has spent more than half of the last 14 years under house arrest, winning the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while confined, and Razali was instrumental in getting Suu Kyi freed last time.
Razali, on his 11th visit to Myanmar, said he would report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and he hoped to return soon.
The controversy over Suu Kyi threatens to overshadow a summit of Southeast Asia's main political body, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), one of the few groups that accepts Myanmar as a member, from Oct. 7 to Oct. 8.
Summit host Indonesia has made clear it does not want Suu Kyi's confinement to distract the leaders.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Thursday he would call on Myanmar to release Suu Kyi if the subject of her detention came up during the summit.
"If there are talks about it, Cambodia will push for reforms in Myanmar, especially the release of Suu Kyi," Hun Sen told reporters in Phnom Penh.
ASEAN has shunned commenting on member nations' internal affairs, but it rebuked Yangon over Suu Kyi's detention following a clash between her followers and government backers on May 30.
Annan, intensifying pressure on the generals, said on Tuesday three years of stop-start reconciliation talks had ground to a halt because of Suu Kyi's detention.
"Unless the parties concerned are able to engage in substantive dialog, the international community will have to conclude that the home-grown national reconciliation process no longer exists," Annan said.
Myanmar says it deserves more credit for its new "road map to democracy" in August, despite giving no timetable for reforms.
Opposition groups have dismissed the plan as a ploy to keep the military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, in power.