Oslo: Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San
Suu Kyi will not come to Oslo before 2011 or 2012, the head of
the Nobel Institute, which intends to celebrate the laureate
who was barred from picking up her prize in 1991, said.
"Now that she is out of her house arrest, the Nobel
Committee renewed its invitation to her," Geir Lundestad said to a news agency, adding however that "she has so much to do in Burma that she cannot leave."
"But when she does come, if in 2011 or 2012, we will
of course celebrate her as the great woman she is," he said.
Lundestad said there was no chance Suu Kyi, who was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, could make it to Oslo
for this year's December 10 Nobel ceremony, which will honour
jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Suu Kyi's sons picked up her prize in 1991, but it is
possible no one in Liu's immediate family will be there this
year to pick up his award, meaning that with Liu still in
jail, the ceremony could be cut short of the few solemn
minutes during which the Nobel is handed out.
Aung San Suu Kyi said Norway is the first country she
will visit, "but she has also said that she cannot leave Burma
in the near future," Lundestad said.
The Myanmar democracy icon has been locked up for 15
of the past 21 years.
She was freed from years of house arrest on Saturday.
PTI
First Published: Friday, November 19, 2010, 21:51