By THOMAS FULLER, Oct 09, New York Times. (Photo: Stephen Shaver/AFP/Getty Images)BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military government allowed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country’s beleaguered democracy movement, to hold a rare meeting with foreign diplomats on Friday as part of what appears to be early but tentative signs of a détente between the junta and Western governments.
The meeting focused almost exclusively on Western sanctions against the country, diplomats said.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has angered the junta with her support for sanctions, but in recent weeks she has suggested that she was open to changing her mind on the issue.
“She was at great pains to say that this was fact-finding and that she had reached no policy view yet,” said Andrew Heyn, the British ambassador to Myanmar, who represented the European Union at the meeting.
“We did a lot of the talking in response to questions from her,” Mr. Heyn said.
Also present were diplomats from Australia and the United States. Drake Weisert, a spokesman for the United States Embassy, said the meeting lasted an hour and was hastily arranged; Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry sent an invitation to the American Embassy on Thursday.
The United States is reassessing the sanctions put in place after the military government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, ignored the results of a landslide election victory in 1990 by Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.
Kurt Campbell, the United States assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said last month that a policy of “pragmatic engagement with the Burmese authorities holds the best hope for advancing our goals.”
He said the United States would maintain sanctions “until we see concrete progress.”
The Myanmar government has long been eager to remove the sanctions, which bar certain senior members of the government from carrying out financial transactions through Western banks and from traveling to the United States, European Union or Australia.
The United States also bans most exports from Myanmar, including gems that pass through third countries.
Mr. Heyn said he was not fully convinced of the junta’s sincerity.
“We have seen false dawns before, sometimes all too often,” he said in a telephone interview. “We are all hoping that it’s the start of something better, but we’re very, very cautious.
“Our sense is that it’s far too early to judge.”
The junta is planning to introduce a new constitution and carry out nationwide elections next year, the first since 1990, although a date has not been announced.
It appears unlikely that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, will be allowed to take part in the elections. Last week, a court rejected an appeal against the extension of her detention.
She has been held under house arrest for 14 of the last 19 years and is now serving an additional 18-month sentence for receiving an uninvited American guest.
Her lawyers say they will appeal to the country’s supreme court.
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