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US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell held meeting with the Myanmar premier Thein Sein and the opposition leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi. He is the first US official of high ranking to visit Myanmar in 14 years.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary Scot Marciel and Campbell met the Myanmar Premier at Naypyitaw after which they met Suu Kyi in Yangon.
Campbell is in Myanmar on a two-day itinerary as a part of US President Barack Obama's new policy of engagement with the pariah regime.
Myanmar journalists were invited to take photos of the arrivals of Campbell and Suu Kyi at the hotel. Campbell was expected to press the junta to release Suu Kyi, and some 2,100 other political prisoners, before the 2010 polls.
The US has indicated that it may consider lifting some of its economic sanctions on Myanmar, also called Burma, if the regime frees Suu Kyi and takes other measures to assure next year's election is "inclusive," free and fair.
On Tuesday, Campbell and Marceil met Myanmar Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Science and Technology Minister U Thaung, and representatives of the Election Commission in Naypyitaw, 350 km north of Myanmar's old capital Yangon.
They were not granted an audience with military supremo Senior General Than Shwe.
The US envoys also plan talks with leaders of Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the Committee Representing the People's Parliament and the pro-junta National Unity Party.
Suu Kyi has welcomed Campbell's visit, seen as part of Obama's diplomatic initiative to engage with the pariah regime to encourage democratic reforms.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Suu Kyi's NLD party won a 1990 general election by a landslide, but has been denied power by the military for the past 19 years - of which she has spent 13 years under house arrest.
Another election is planned in 2010, but the international community is not expected to accept its outcome unless Suu Kyi and some 2,100 other political prisoners are freed beforehand and the NLD is allowed to contest the polls.








