US State Department Official Visits Naypyidaw

By WAI MOE

Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win met Stephen Blake, the director of the US State Department’s Mainland Southeast Asia office, on

Tuesday in the military junta’s remote capital of Naypyidaw, Burma’s state-run media reported today.

Nyan Win discussed “issues of mutual interests and promotion of bilateral relations” with the state department official, according to The New Light of Myanmar.

The State Department’s Burma officer, Laura Scheible, did not join Blake on his Burma trip. The State Department did not say anything about the trip during its daily press briefing on Tuesday.

Burmese have not seen this kind of news in the state-run media for many years. Coverage of US-related news is usually confined to updates of American casualty figures in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and monthly reports on the number of times US diplomats in Rangoon have met with officials of the opposition National League for Democracy.

Blake is currently traveling around Southeast Asia. Last week, he was in Cambodia for a three-day visit. He said the US would be neutral on the issue of a recent Cambodia-Thailand border dispute.

A Thailand-based Western diplomat told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that Blake’s trip to Burma was part of a regular tour of the region. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the diplomat said that although the US was willing to engage with the Burmese junta, it would only do so conditionally.

Last week, the assistant secretary of the US State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, James Warlick, told reporters that the US still regards the Burmese junta as a repressive government.

“We still see political prisoners. Aung San Suu Kyi still remains under house arrest,” he said.

The new US administration under President Barack Obama has vowed to review its Burma policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a trip to Asia in February that both sanctions and engagement have failed to bring about positive change in Burma.

Meanwhile, the European Union is also reexamining its stance on Burma. Piero Fassino, the EU special envoy to Burma, told reporters on Wednesday that the EU could
vote for an easing of sanctions if the Burmese military junta eases restrictions on opponents ahead of elections slated for 2010.

Speaking in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, he added that the EU would only consider the 2010 elections to be free and fair if the government passes fair electoral rules and frees political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying “It is impossible to achieve a free and fair election if the leader of the opposition is in prison.”

The Burmese junta has been busy with diplomatic matters recently.

Last weekend, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya visited Naypyidaw, where he was asked by Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein to help convince rebellious ethnic minorities to join the junta’s seven-step “road map” to “disciplined democracy.”

A week ago, on March 18, Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, met with the head of the junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, in Naypyidaw.

Before Chen Bingde’s visit to Burma, Thein Sein made a three-day trip to Indonesia and Singapore on March 16-18.

This week, Li Changchun, the propaganda chief of the ruling Communist Party of China and the 5th highest-ranking official in Beijing, will visit Burma after traveling to Australia.