US envoy unlikely to meet with Myanmar junta chief on visit

Nov 2, 2009, 3:50 GMT

   Yangon - US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is unlikely to meet with Myanmar's junta chief Senior General Than Shwe on his two-day visit to the military-ruled country this week, government sources said Monday.

   Campbell is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar's former capital of Yangon Tuesday morning and fly directly on to the military's new headquarters of Naypyitaw, government sources confirmed.

   In Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Yangon, Campbell is to meet with Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Chief Justice Aung Toe and representatives of the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA), the political arm of the junta.        There was no meeting scheduled with military supremo Than Shwe, said sources who required anonymity.

   Campbell is scheduled to return to Yangon Wednesday, departing for Bangkok later that day.

   It was unclear whether he would be allowed to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in her family compound in Yangon.

   Suu Kyi has welcomed Campbell's visit, seen as part of US President Barack Obama's diplomatic effort to re-engage with the pariah regime.

   Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won a 1990 general election by a landslide, but has been denied power by the military for the past 19 years - of which she has spent 13 years under house arrest.

   Another election is planned in 2010, but the international community is not expected to accept its outcome unless Suu Kyi and some 2,100 other political prisoners are freed beforehand and the NLD is allowed to contest the polls.