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The head of Myanmar’s military-installed government expressed openness to arranging a meeting at the right time between UN special envoy Noeleen Heyzer and the country’s imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the United Nations said Thursday.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told Heyzer during a meeting Wednesday in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw, that in the immediate term measures would be taken to safeguard her health and well-being.
Myanmar has been wracked by violent unrest since the army ousted Suu Kyi’s elected government in February last year.
The military takeover prevented Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party from beginning a second term in office, and Suu Kyi has been prosecuted in a string of criminal cases widely seen as politically motivated by the ruling military. She is being held in prison in Naypyitaw and the government has refused to allow her to meet with any outsiders.
On the UN envoy’s first mission to the strife-torn country, Heyzer called on general Hlaing to urgently halt all violence, support a political path back to civilian rule and democracy, and allow Suu Kyi to return home and to meet with her.
She also reiterated Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ extreme concern about Myanmar’s humanitarian, security, economic and political crisis and his call for the release of all political prisoners.
