Myanmar door ajar to junta-Suu Kyi talks

YANGON - The door to talks between Myanmar's ruling generals and detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to be ajar on Saturday as Western powers piled pressure on the regime to begin a dialogue with the opposition.

Speaking to reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on his four-day visit to Myanmar, special envoy Ibrahim Gambari said he saw a "window of opportunity" for possible talks between the junta and Suu Kyi, who met Gambari twice in Yangon, where she is under house arrest.

"From my own conversation, she appears to be very anxious to have a proper dialogue" provided there were no preconditions, Gambari said.

Senior General Than Shwe, who outraged the world by sending in soldiers to crush peaceful monk-led demonstrations, has offered direct talks if Suu Kyi abandoned "confrontation" and her support for sanctions and "utter devastation".

Myanmar analysts caution against optimism as hopes of change in the past have been dashed so often in 45 years of unbroken military rule punctuated by the army killing 3,000 people in crushing an uprising in 1988.

Two years later, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide election victory which the generals ignored and she has spent 12 of the last 18 years in detention.

But NLD spokesman Nyan Win, who initially rejected Than Shwe's offer as unreal, said on Saturday it could open the door to talks about talks.

"We can say it is a significant improvement on the past situation. They have never committed themselves to talking to her," Nyan Win said.

There has been no word from the 62-year-old Suu Kyi, who is confined without a telephone and requires official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.

However, in what appeared to another move aimed at deflecting international anger, state-television broadcast rare footage of Suu Kyi for the first time in four years on Friday night.

It referred to her respectfully as "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi", a departure from past practice when her father's name, Aung San, was dropped to deny her link to the nation's independence hero.

Official newspapers on Saturday quoted a senior junta official as telling the U.N. envoy "anti-government groups should compromise and adjust their policies".

MORE PRESSURE

In New York, Britain, France and the United States, which is pushing for tougher sanctions against the regime, circulated a draft statement to the Security Council which demanded the junta free political detainees and talk to the opposition.

A statement has no legal force, but if a strongly worded text were approved by China, until now Myanmar's closest ally on the council, it would send a forceful message to the junta.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, said he was hopeful of international action given the strong consensus at the Human Rights Council, where even China and Russia agreed to a condemnatory resolution.

Pinheiro has been denied a visa to visit Myanmar for four years, but he said he was still hoping to go and that there were positive signs despite the resistance of China and Russia against Security Council action.

"Let's not despair at this moment," he said.

"I can't guarantee that something positive will happen but I think that we are living at a moment where things are moving and perhaps this famous 'international community' will have some effect."

State television said the junta was hunting four monks it accused of leading the protests, more evidence that its ruthless crackdown against its biggest challenge in 20 years is not over.

The junta says 10 people were killed in the crackdown, but Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.