2 US Officials to Visit Burma Next Week

The U.S. State Department said Friday that two senior U.S. officials will travel to Burma next week for talks with members of the government and the opposition.

Robert Wood, a spokesman for the State Department, said Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy Scot Marciel will begin a two-day visit on Tuesday.

They will meet with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as Burma's senior military leaders.

Campbell met with Burma's officials last month in New York.

U.S. Senator Jim Webb held a landmark meeting with Burma's military leader Than Shwe in August. He was also permitted to visit with Aung San Suu Kyi.

She has spent 14 of the past 20 years in some form of detention.

A Burmese court recently extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by 18 months for alleged violations of security laws in connection with a visit by a U.S. citizen. John Yettaw swam uninvited to her lakeside home and stayed overnight.

The United States and the United Nations are pressing Burma to release all political prisoners including the detained Nobel Prize laureate so they can participate in next year's elections.

Burma has been run by the military since 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the national League for Democracy won the vast majority of seats in the 1990 parliamentary election, but the junta refused to concede power.


Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.