Myanmar says UN envoy due on June 26
Jun 25th, 2009
YANGON (AFP) – United Nations troubleshooter Ibrahim Gambari is due in Myanmar on Friday, a local official said, to lay the groundwork for a planned visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Gambari would confer with members of the ruling junta and politicians including members of the party of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who is on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest, UN sources in New York said.
He is to brief the UN chief on the outcome of his mission and Ban will then decide whether to go ahead with plans to visit Myanmar early next month, according to the UN sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A Myanmar official who would not be named said that Gambari would arrive on Friday and leave on Saturday. He would land in the main city of Yangon and travel to the administrative capital Naypyidaw, the official said.
Diplomats in Yangon also said Gambari was expected Friday.
The UN sources had said Gambari would due in Myanmar on Thursday. There was no explanation for the discrepancy between the UN and Myanmar accounts but due to the time difference late Thursday New York time is early Friday Yangon time.
The UN boss and Gambari have been trying to persuade Myanmar’s military regime to free all political detainees, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and to steer their country on the path to democracy and national reconciliation.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention since the ruling generals refused to recognise the landslide victory of her National League for Democracy (NLD) in 1990 elections.
She is being held on charges of violating her house arrest after an American man swam to her lakeside house earlier this year. Myanmar authorities were due to hold a press conference about the man, John Yettaw, later Thursday.
The charges against her come amid a wide-ranging crackdown on the opposition that has been carried out since the ruling generals crushed protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962.