Suu Kyi's talks with junta promising, says E.U. team

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, FEB. 1. A five-member European Union delegation, which met the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon recently, has said that her contacts with the military regime were ``promising but yet not irreversible''.

``We had the impression that the contacts were the most interesting thing to happen since (elections in) 1990,'' Mr. Borje Ljunggren, representing the E.U. presidency, was quoted as telling reporters in Bangkok. According to him, Ms. Suu Kyi was ``cautiously optimistic'' about her talks with the Myanmar junta's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt.

Mr. Ljunggren, who is the head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry's Asia department, said the Nobel laureate was ``in a very good mood and well in all respects''. Stating that the visit of the E.U. delegation, which had been worked out some time ago at an ASEAN-EU Ministerial meeting in Laos, came at ``an interesting but delicate moment,'' he added that both sides wanted to maintain strict confidentiality about the talks. According to him, the contacts between the military regime and Ms. Suu Kyi were still at an early stage.

``Both sides seem to want to pursue them (the contacts)...but you need something more substantial to consider them irreversible,'' the Swedish official stated. ``We expressed the hope that the contacts would develop further, broadening and deepening so as to promote national reconciliation, democracy and human rights,'' Mr. Ljunggren said.

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Section  : International
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