Phnom Penh, June 15: Myanmar's Foreign Minister said today that the country's military government will not commit itself to a date for releasing pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But the government definitely wants to free her when the time comes, Foreign Minister Win Aung told reporters in Phnom Penh where he will attend an annual association of South East Asian nations conference beginning tomorrow.
Suu Kyi was detained on May 30 after a clash between her supporters and a pro-government mob in northern Myanmar. She has been kept incommunicado since then, jeopardizing the reconciliation process to end the country's 15-year-old political deadlock.
"Don't press us to commit ourselves to a timeframe and date of releasing her. We do not tie ourselves with that commitment, but the important thing is that the will (to free her) is there," he said.
Myanmar's government has said in the past that Suu Kyi a Nobel peace laureate, will be freed when the situation becomes normal, and that she is being kept in detention for her own safety.
The current Junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy movement. It called elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power after Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won.
She was kept for several years under house arrest, and a UN-mediated national reconciliation process started in October 2000 has made little progress. Bureau Report