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Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State Department on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — Myanmar's opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, began her first official visit to Washington on Tuesday, punctuating the remarkable thawing of tensions between the United States and Myanmar over the last year.
For Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who is widely revered here for her political struggle against Myanmar's military rulers, the visit amounted to a political homecoming to a place she had not visited before — a trip virtually unimaginable a year ago when the Obama administration first put out feelers to the new president of the country, also known as Burma.
She met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State Department on Tuesday morning and was expected to hold a series of public and private meetings with administration officials, lawmakers and democracy advocates. The White House has not yet announced whether she will meet with President Obama.
Among many awards and ceremonies planned here this week, she will receive Congress' highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, in the Capitol's Rotunda on Wednesday, four years after she was first awarded it while still under house arrest.
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi first met at Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's lakeside villa in Myanmar's capital, Yangon, in December, when Mrs. Clinton became the first American secretary of state to visit that countrysince 1955. They have since remained in regular contact as the United States returned an ambassador to the country and has taken steps to ease the raft of sanctions long imposed on Myanmar because of its repressive policies.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest in November 2010 and earlier this year elected to the country's Parliament, appears to have closely coordinated her trip with the new government, led since April 2011 by Preisdent U Thein Sein. She is being accompanied on the visit by a senior aide close to the president, Aung Min.
The coordination this time contrasted her visit to neighboring Thailand in May, her first outside of Myanmar since her release from house arrest. That trip raised tensions with Mr. Thein Sein, who canceled his own trip there scheduled for the same period. Both are scheduled to be in New York next week during the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly.
While they are not exactly allies, their relationship is considered crucial to stabilizing the country as it makes the transition from military dictatorship to a more open, if not yet democratic system.
"Both sides are reaching out to each other," said U Tin Maung Thann, the president of Myanmar Egress, an organization that works with the president's office. He noted that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had invited Mr. Aung to the Capitol Hill ceremony and that they even consulted each other on the color of their outfits.
"Their understanding of each other is much better than during the Thai visit," Mr. Tin Maung Thann said, referring to her and Mr. Thein Sein.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Washington the day after Mr. Thein Sein's government announced the release of 514 prisoners, the latest in a series of amnesties that have included some, but not all, political prisoners.
The release of some political prisoners in a larger amnesty was in keeping with what American officials have said was a strategy to avoid a blanket release of political prisoners that could anger Myanmar's hardliners. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, an advocacy organization, accounted for only 86 political prisoners among the latest group released.
"Real reform means pardoning and releasing all political prisoners, not releasing some and holding others," John Sifton of Human Rights Watch said in an e-mail on Tuesday. "Releasing prisoners in dribs and drabs suggests the regime isn't fully committed to reform."
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's trip to the United States is expected to last 17 days and also include appearance at the Newseum in Washington on Thursday, at Queens College in New York on Saturday and at the University of Louisville in Kentucky next week, the latter as a guest of one of her closest supporters in Congress, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader.
Thomas Fuller contributed reporting from Yangon, Myanmar.
By STEVEN LEE MYERS 19 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/asia/myanmars-opposition-leader-aung-san-suu-kyi-begins-visit-to-us.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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