Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says she is willing to work with Myanmar's military government on getting Western sanctions against the country lifted, but needs to be allowed to gather more information about the issue first, her lawyer said Friday.
Nyan Win, who is also a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said after meeting the detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Friday that she will send a letter to junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe with her views on the sanctions issue.
Her position appeared to signal a change in her attitude toward sanctions, which she had previously welcomed as a way to pressure the junta to come to an accommodation with the pro-democracy movement.
The U.S. and other Western nations apply political and economic sanctions against the military regime because of its poor human rights record and failure to turn over power to Suu Kyi's party, which won general elections in 1990.
Nyan Win declined to divulge the content of Suu Kyi's letter but said she has always declared she will cooperate with the government on lifting sanctions against the country.
However, she and her pro-democracy movement have always insisted on concessions from the government if they are to work together with them, particularly the freeing of political prisoners and the reopening of her party offices around the country that were closed by the authorities.
Her new position seemed be an endorsement of a new U.S. policy announced Wednesday to engage with the military regime instead of simply trying to isolate it. It also seemed to be a confidence-building gesture toward the junta on an issue that is one of its major concerns.
"She said in 2007 that she is willing to work with the government for lifting of sanctions, but in order to implement that, she needs to have more details about the sanctions and the opinions of those countries that impose sanctions," Nyan Win said.
Than Shwe said in October 2007 that he would only talk with Suu Kyi if she renounces calls for international sanctions and abandons her confrontational stance.
Suu Kyi has been in detention for about 14 of the past 20 years and continuously since May 2003.
The army has ruled Myanmar since 1962. Several efforts by the United Nations to promote a dialogue between the pro-democracy movement and the junta have failed.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that Washington will change its hard-line policy and engage in direct high-level talks with the junta as part of efforts to promote democracy.
She announced the new U.S. approach at the United Nations after meeting with counterparts from a number of countries trying to convince the authoritarian regime to reform, allow dissent and release thousands of political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.
She said that U.S. sanctions against members of Myanmar's leadership would remain in place but that those measures would now be accompanied by outreach. For months, Clinton had lamented that the sanctions alone were having little impact.
