US envoy unlikely to meet with Myanmar junta chief on visit (Roundup)

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 and US Deputy Assistant Secretary Scot Marciel are 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 requested anonymity. Campbell and Marciel are scheduled to return to Yangon Wednesday, where, according to US embassy sources in Bangkok, they expect to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in her family compound in Yangon. They are to depart Wednesday evening. Marciel is to travel on to Thailand where on Thursday he is due to participate in a public forum at Chulalongkorn University on US foreign policy towards Myanmar and also brief Thai government officials about his visit. Suu Kyi has welcomed Campbell's visit, seen as part of US President Barack Obama's diplomatic effort to engage with the pariah regime to encourage democratic reforms. 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.