LEAD: Myanmar opposition leader hails US engagement

Dec 2, 2011, 6:22 GMT

Yangon - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday welcomed US engagement with her once-pariah country.

'It is through engagement that we hope to promote the process of democratization,' Suu Kyi said after holding two hours of talks with visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She also praised US President Barack Obama for following a 'careful and calibrated' approach to engagement with Myanmar's pro-military government, which has in recent months shown flickers of reform.

Last month, Obama announced his decision to send Clinton to Myanmar, making her the first US Secretary of State to visit in 56 years. The country was under military dictatorships from 1962.

Myanmar held its first election in two decades a year ago. Its President Thein Sein initiated talks with Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, in August and has paved the way for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to re-enter politics and contest an upcoming by-election.

Clinton met with President Thein Sein Thursday in what he hailed as a historic trip. The South-East Asian country has been under US sanctions for more than two decades because of its poor human rights record and failure to implement democratic reforms.

After her talks in Naypyitaw, Clinton said the time was not yet ripe to drop sanctions, although she hinted at upgrading diplomatic ties to the ambassadorial level.

There has also been talk of the US allowing the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to resume activities in the country.

'My visit here is intended to explain the path forward,' Clinton said, after holding talks with Suu Kyi and NLD senior members at her family compound in Yangon.

'The US wants to be a partner with Burma,' she said, calling the country by its old name. The country's former military junta changed its official name to Myanmar two decades ago.

Both Clinton and Suu Kyi stressed that the new government still needs to do much more.

'Two of the greatest needs of this country are the needs for rule of law and a cessation of civil war,' Suu Kyi said.

Both Clinton and Suu Kyi renewed calls for all political prisoners to be released.

'If we go forward together, I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy,' Suu Kyi. 'We are not on that road yet but we hope to get there as soon as possible.'

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