Suu Kyi meet aimed at blocking UN action

Ibrahim Gambari, UN under-secretary general for political affairs, held talks with the 60-year-old Nobel peace laureate at a military guest house in Yangon Saturday for about one hour.

The surprise meeting followed Gambari's talks with Myanmar's reclusive leader Senior General Than Shwe at a secret jungle compound outside the central town of Pyinmana early Saturday.

"The envoy told the junta leader that Myanmar should speed up democratisation and improve human rights," a Yangon-based diplomat who received a briefing from Gambari on his mission told AFP.

"Also Gambari asked the junta to help UN humanitarian workers operate smoothly in the country," the diplomat said.

The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of national elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

She has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest in Yangon and the junta was likely to extend her house arrest later this month. She has also been barred from seeing foreigners for more than two years.

The last foreign visitor to see the opposition leader was Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar, in March 2004.

Analysts said Myanmar set up the meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the envoy in an attempt to block UN Security Council action against the junta amid growing international pressure on the regime for democratic reforms.