US envoy arrives in Myanmar's capital on engagement mission

Yangon - US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell arrived in Myanmar's military capital of Naypyitaw Tuesday for high-level talks with the ruling junta as part of the US's new engagement policy with the pariah regime, sources said. Campbell, accompanied by US Deputy Assistant Secretary Scot Marciel, was scheduled to meet with Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Minister Kyaw Thu, who is the junta's liaison with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Science and Technology Minister U Thaung, and representatives of the Election Commission in Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Myanmar's old capital of Yangon. There was no meeting scheduled with military supremo Senior General Than Shwe but on Wednesday the US envoys are due to meet with Prime Minister Thein Sein, government sources said. Campbell and Marciel are scheduled to return to Yangon Wednesday, where they are to meet with Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi at the Inya Lake Hotel, near her family compound where she has been kept under detention for the past six years. The US envoys also plan talks with leaders of Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the Committee Representing the People's Parliament and the pro-junta National Unity Party. Marciel is to travel on to Thailand to participate in a public forum at Chulalongkorn University on US foreign policy towards Myanmar Thursday, and also brief Thai government officials. 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 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.