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I had a good lunch with the good la



                                  Philippine foreign minister met Burma's
                                  Suu Kyi
                                  11:34 a.m. Oct 23, 1997 Eastern

                                  MANILA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Philippine
Foreign
                                  Secretary Domingo Siazon said on Thursday
 he had
                                  met with Burmese opposition leader Aung
San Suu
                                  Kyi in her Rangoon home last week but
declined to
                                  give details of their talks.

                                  ``I had a good lunch with the good
lady,'' Siazon told
                                  the Senate finance committee during a
public hearing
                                  on the government budget. He did not
elaborate.

                                  Siazon is this year's chairman of the
Association of
                                  South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) standing
                                  committee and is believed to be the most
senior
                                  ASEAN official to meet Suu Kyi since the
group
                                  admitted Burma as a member in July.

                                  Siazon accompanied President Fidel Ramos
on the
                                  Philippine leader's visit to Rangoon last
 week.

                                  Siazon told reporters that Rangoon's
ruling State Law
                                  and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and
 Suu
                                  Kyi's main opposition National League for
                                  Democracy (NLD) needed to talk to solve
the
                                  country's problems.

                                  ``They have to talk. They have to restart
 (the talks)
                                  even at the lower level. It's better that
 they are talking
                                  so that in the end they can find a
Burmese solution to
                                  their own problems.''

                                  ``Of course, in the beginning you ask for
 the moon,''
                                  he added.

                                  The SLORC released Suu Kyi, winner of the
 1991
                                  Nobel Peace Prize, from six years house
arrest in
                                  Rangoon in July 1995.

                                  The NLD won a landslide election victory
in 1990 but
                                  the SLORC never recognised it.

                                  ASEAN groups Brunei, Burma, Indonesia,
Laos,
                                  Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and
                                  Vietnam.