Myanmar’s government is urging pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to officially register her National League for Democracy as a party so it can legally take part in politics.
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a rare news conference yesterday that the government has not cracked down on the group so far in the interests of national reconciliation.
He also pledged to continue the ongoing dialogue with the democracy icon and to allow a visit by a UN human rights envoy.
The comments came shortly before Suu Kyi and labour minister Aung Kyi began a second round of talks in Yangon.
“We will continue these kinds of meetings for the benefit of the people,” Kyaw Hsan told around 50 reporters.
Kyaw Hsan said Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, who was last allowed into the country in February 2010, would return without specifying a date.
Suu Kyi was released from seven straight years of house arrest days after a controversial election last year and was warned by the regime in June to stay out of politics.
She has signalled her intention to remain in politics and yesterday’s meeting comes two days before she is due to make her first overtly political trip outside Yangon since she was freed from seven straight years of house arrest in November.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner first tested her freedom with a visit to an ancient temple city in central Myanmar in July, although politics was not officially on the agenda.
The NLD, which won a 1990 vote but was never allowed to take power, boycotted the latest election because of rules seemed designed to exclude Suu Kyi and was stripped of its recognition as a political party as a result.
-With The Daily Star input
