AP

YANGON, Myanmar -Myanmar’s military regime will allow diplomats to meet with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi after Wednesday’s session of her trial. The move follows a hail of international criticism over the junta’s handling of her case.

Suu Kyi, who has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years, is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American visitor to stay at her home without official permission. The offense is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

She is standing trial with two female members of her party who live with her, and John W. Yettaw, the American man who triggered the charges by swimming to Suu Kyi’s property under the cover of darkness earlier this month and sneaking uninvited into her home.

Suu Kyi, who is being held at the infamous Insein Prison along with scores of other political prisoners, had been scheduled to be freed May 27 after six consecutive years under house arrest. The charges against her are widely seen as a pretext for her to stay in detention during polls scheduled for next year — the culmination of the junta’s “roadmap to democracy,” which has been criticized as a fig leaf for continued military rule.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. It last held an election in 1990, but the junta refused to honor the results after a landslide victory by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.

The court on Monday rejected a request by Suu Kyi’s lawyer for an open trial.

But on Wednesday, the country’s Information Ministry ruled that five foreign correspondents and five local reporters could attend the trial’s afternoon session. Authorities also said all embassies could send one diplomat.

A U.S. consular official had been allowed to attend the court sessions because Yettaw is standing trial, but the proceedings were otherwise closed to the press and public.

At the same time, authorities have agreed to allow the Thai, Singapore and Russian ambassadors to meet with Suu Kyi at the conclusion of her trial on Wednesday, said a diplomat, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press. They are expected to meet her in a “guest house” within the prison compound where she is being held.

The move comes a day after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed “grave concern” about developments related to Suu Kyi and reaffirmed calls for her immediate release. It also called for her to get adequate medical care and be treated with dignity.

“With the eyes of the international community on Myanmar at present, the honor and the credibility of the government of the Union of Myanmar are at stake,” ASEAN said in a statement.

The comments were unusually tough for an organization that normally refrains from criticizing its member countries.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the charges against Suu Kyi were “unjustified” and called for her unconditional release and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners.

Suu Kyi’s arrest could well derail a “softer” approach that the Obama administration had been searching for to replace sanctions and other get-tough policies that have done nothing to divert the junta’s iron-fisted rule.

China, which as Myanmar’s closest ally probably has the most influence with its ruling generals, has shown no signs it will exert pressure on Myanmar’s government.

“Myanmar’s issue should be decided by the Myanmar people,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at a regular news briefing. “We hope that the relevant parties in Myanmar could realize reconciliation, stability and development through dialogue.”

On Tuesday, Nyan Win, a party spokesman and one of her four lawyers, said five of the prosecution’s 22 scheduled witnesses testified at her trial. Among them were two police officers who were said to have fished Yettaw out of Yangon’s Inya Lake after he swam away from Suu Kyi’s residence.

“Now it is very clear that they are trying to speed up the trial,” he told reporters at party headquarters. “If it goes on at this rate, it could even be over by next week.”

Nyan Win had speculated Monday that the trial could last up to three months.

The family of 53-year-old Yettaw, of Falcon Missouri, describes him as a well-intentioned admirer of Suu Kyi who merely wanted to interview her, unaware of the possible consequences. Suu Kyi’s supporters have expressed anger at him for getting her into trouble.

Hundreds of police in full riot gear, some armed with rifles, were deployed along all roads leading to Insein prison where the trial was taking place, while about 100 Suu Kyi supporters gathered peacefully nearby. Dozens of plainclothes policemen and more than a hundred members of a pro-junta militia were deployed near the prison.

Some members of her party who gathered near an inner layer of barricades said supporters of the junta tried to provoke them with abuse.