Bangkok, Sept 04: Thailand today rejected US claims that Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was on hunger strike, Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said. "Based on our own intelligence reports, there is no hunger strike being staged by Aung San Suu Kyi," he told reporters.
The US State Department claimed on Sunday that the pro-democracy leader had begun fasting to protest against her three-month detention at the hands of the country's military rulers. Myanmar has hotly denied the claims, which have been greeted with some scepticism by analysts in Yangon, but Washington has insisted they were not made "on the basis of flimsy information".
US officials have not divulged where they received the information, nor when they believe the Nobel Peace laureate began refusing food. The charges came a day after newly appointed Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt announced a seven-point "road map" to democracy including "free and fair" elections under a new Constitution.
Myanmar yesterday slammed the US tactics as a ruse devised to detract attention from its project to restore "democracy" there.
Surakiart expressed confidence that Myanmar would proceed with the plan, despite many observers dismissing it as a rehash of previous promises by the regime to loosen its decades-long grip on power. Bureau Report