AP-U.S. Senator Meets Myanmar Leade

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Subject: AP-U.S. Senator Meets Myanmar Leaders

Tuesday August 31 10:07 AM ET

U.S. Senator Meets Myanmar Leaders

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - U.S. Senator Richard Shelby met with Myanmar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, the first day of a four-day
official visit by the Alabama lawmaker.

Shelby, a Republican member of the Senate's powerful appropriations
committee, met earlier with a top member of Myanmar's ruling junta, said a
U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

No details were announced about the meeting with Suu Kyi, head of the
National League for Democracy, or the one with Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, the
third-ranking general in the ruling regime.

The United States has frosty relations with Myanmar because Washington
disapproves of the junta's poor human rights record and failure to hand over
power to a democratically elected government. Suu Kyi's party won a 1990
election, but the military never allowed parliament to convene.

Sanctions imposed by Washington bar top junta members from being granted
visas to the United States, and Myanmar - also called Burma - has a
tit-for-tat policy.

Shelby travels Wednesday to Mandalay, the country's second biggest city. He
departs Friday.

Shelby is on a tour of Southeast Asia. He last visited Myanmar in 1993.