Sheikh Hasina, the leader of Awami League party which won landslide in this week’s elections in Bangladesh, said opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of the neighbouring Myanmar, who has been under house arrest since May 2003, should be released.

She told a questioner at her first press conference after her alliance’s grand victory at Bangladesh-China Friendship International Conference Center that her party is always in favour of democracy.

When a foreign journalist asked her to explain her stand on detained Myanmar leader Suu Kyi, Sheikh Hasina said, “We want immediate release of Suu Kyi”.

“Burma is a close neighbuoring country of Bangladesh and as such we want good neighbourly relations with Yangon”, Sheikh Hasina said.

“Friendship with all and malice to none” is our cardinal foreign policy she said adding that she wants a peaceful and democratic South Asian region.