YANGON (AFP) –
UN chief Ban Ki-moon must meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi when he visits military-ruled Myammar this week if he hopes to make real progress towards democratic reform, her party has said.
The world body announced late Monday that secretary general Ban would visit Myanmar on Friday and Saturday for talks with the ruling junta on the release of all political prisoners, including the Nobel Peace laureate.
The diplomatically risky visit starts the same day as a Myanmar court is due to resume the trial of the 64-year-old on charges that she violated her house arrest after an American man swam to her lakeside home.
"We welcome Mr Ban Ki-moon's visit," Nyan Win, the spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) and a member of her legal team, told AFP.
"His visit will focus on three main things: to release all political prisoners, to start dialogue and also to ensure free and fair elections in 2010. Regarding these three things, he needs to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi."
A UN statement said Ban "looks forward to meeting all key stakeholders" during his two-day visit but did not specify whether he would meet Aung San Suu Kyi herself.
But the UN chief in May described her as an "indispensable patron for reconsidering the dialogue in Myanmar".
Aung San Suu Kyi is currently being held at Insein prison in Yangon where her internationally condemned trial is taking place alongside that of eccentric American John Yettaw. She faces up to five years in jail if convicted.
The NLD leader has spent 13 of the last 19 years in jail since the junta refused to recognise the party's landslide victory in Myanmar's last elections, in 1990.
The UN chief decided to go ahead with his trip after being briefed Sunday by his special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, who paid a short preparatory visit to the country last week.
Gambari met twice with Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win in the junta's remote administrative capital Naypyidaw before holding talks with Singapore's ambassador and UN staff in Yangon, but he did not meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Ban visits, he will address "the resumption of dialogue between the Government and Opposition as a necessary part of any national reconciliation process," the UN statement said.
He will also focus on "the need to create conditions conducive to credible elections", as well as on the release of political prisoners, it added.
The ruling junta has promised to hold elections in 2010, but critics say they are a sham designed to entrench the generals' hold on power and that Aung San Suu Kyi's trial is designed to keep her behind bars during the polls.
Diplomats at the United Nations said Ban had faced a dilemma in responding to the formal invitation from Myanmar rulers.
Refusing to make the visit would be seen as not fulfilling his role as secretary general, but to accept and return empty-handed would be seen as a slap in the face for him and for the international community, said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Other diplomats said Ban was also in a delicate position because of conflicting pressures from different countries.
Veto-wielding China, a traditional ally of Myanmar, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations of which Myanmar is a member, were pushing Ban to go without setting conditions, they said.
But Western nations were pressing him to secure at least some concessions from the military regime.
Ban's last trip to Myanmar was in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, when he visited devastated regions and pressured the junta into allowing foreign aid workers into the hardest-hit areas.
The trip made him the first UN secretary general in 44 years to visit Myanmar but he was also effectively barred from bringing up issues of political reform.
The UN statement said he "considers it important to consolidate and build on the joint humanitarian effort following his visit last year".
