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31.01.09 UN envoy Gambari back to Burma
Source: Bangkok Post
United Nations — The United Nations on Friday
confirmed that its special envoy Ibrahim Gambari would begin a four-day
visit to Burma on Saturday at the invitation of the government to
continue talks on national reconciliation.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon asked Gambari "to continue his consultations
with the government and other relevant parties" and the secretary
general "looks forward to meaningful discussions with all concerned on
all the points raised during his last visit," UN deputy spokeswoman
Marie Okabe said in a statement.
Earlier a Burmese government
official said Gambari would arrive in Rangoon Saturday, and spend four
days in the country, less than six months after his last visit ended in
deadlock.
During Gambari's last mission in August, opposition
leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi surprised observers by
refusing to meet with the Nigerian diplomat.
The move was
interpreted as a diplomatic snub to Gambari, after he had failed to
secure any political reform in Burma, which has been ruled by the
military since 1962.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last
19 years under house arrest at her lakeside house in Rangoon, seeing
only her personal doctor and sometimes her lawyer.
Her party, the NLD, won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but the junta never allowed it to take office.
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