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US diplomats meet Burmese leaders | US diplomats meet Burmese leaders |
(about 5 hours later) | |
Two senior US envoys have held separate talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. | |
The visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy is the highest level contact between the two governments for more than a decade. | |
Mr Campbell met the prime minister in the capital, Naypyitaw, before flying to Rangoon to meet Ms Suu Kyi. | |
No details of either set of talks have been released. | |
The visit comes weeks after the US announced it would engage with Burma's military junta in an attempt to promote reform. | |
But the US envoys are not meeting Burma's top leader, General Than Shwe. | |
New approach | |
Aung San Suu Kyi said nothing as she entered the lakeside hotel in Rangoon to meet the US officials. | |
But the fact that she was seen in public and was allowed to meet such a high-level US delegation is being seen as positive, reports BBC South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey. | |
After the talks, which lasted two hours, Mr Campbell was expected to meet with leaders of Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), officials said. | |
The US diplomats earlier met Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein in Naypyidaw. Details of those discussions have not been made public. | |
The visit is the latest evidence of Washington's new approach towards Burma, our correspondent says, a policy described as engagement alongside sanctions. | |
There is a growing belief in diplomatic circles that isolating the military leadership has not had the desired effect. The question now is whether face-to-face dialogue is any more productive, our reporter adds. | |
Burma's military junta says multi-party elections will take place in early 2010 - the first polls in almost two decades. | |
Ms Suu Kyi's NLD won the last elections, in 1990, but was never allowed to take power. |