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UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to visit Myanmar
AFP - Saturday, January 31
YANGON (AFP) - - UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is expected to arrive in Myanmar on Saturday to broker fresh talks with the ruling junta, a government official said.
Gambari will arrive in the main city of Yangon and spend four days in the country, less than six months after his last visit ended in deadlock, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As with previous visits, the authorities have kept the special envoy in the dark over his itinerary in the country until the last moment.
A UN official would only confirm that an invitation had been extended to Gambari by Myanmar authorities but gave no further details.
"You have to ask yourself why the United Nations has not confirmed the dates" of Gambari's visit, less than 24 hours before his expected arrival, a Western diplomat told AFP.
Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition National League of Democracy (NLD), said Gambari was expected to meet with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
During Gambari's last mission to Myanmar last August, Aung San Suu Kyi surprised observers by refusing to meet with the Nigerian diplomat.
The move was interpreted as a diplomatic snub to Gambari, after he had failed to secure any political reform in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.
Nyan Win said the NLD had not yet had a reply from Myanmar authorities to a request for a meeting between their central party committee members and Aung San Suu Kyi, who is rarely allowed to meet with anyone.
The democracy leader has spent most of the last 19 years under house arrest at her lakeside house in Yangon, seeing only her personal doctor and sometimes her lawyer.
Her party, the NLD, won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but the junta never allowed it to take office.
Gambari hopes to secure some sort of progress ahead of a possible visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon this year, one diplomat said.
He said the regime was now so "sure of itself" it was opening up a little to the international community.
Junta chief General Than Shwe, a "bete noire" of the US administration under George W. Bush's presidency, sent a message of congratulations to new President Barack Obama after his inauguration last week.
A senior official told AFP Myanmar hopes Obama will change Washington's tough policy towards its military regime and end the "misunderstandings" of the past.
"The consequences of the Obama effect (on Gambari's mission) remain to be seen," said one diplomat.
Dialogue that between the regime and opposition NLD party after Buddhist monk-led demonstrations against the junta in 2007, has now reached an impasse.
The last known meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the government took place in January 2008.
The regime, which adopted a new constitution in 2008, says it intends to organise elections in 2010.
But the US, the EU and the United Nations have dismissed the lengthy proceedings as a sham because of the absence of the NLD party.
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