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Myanmar opposition party hopes UN envoy's visit will revive stalled talks with junta

By Associated Press

2:03 AM EDT, August 17, 2008

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Myanmar's main opposition party said Sunday that it hopes a visiting U.N. special envoy can help restart talks between detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling junta.

U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who is promoting national reconciliation and democratic reform in Myanmar, will spend five days in the country starting Monday.

"We hope that Mr. Gambari would be able to revive the stalled dialogue," said Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

He said the U.N.-brokered talks between the junta's specially appointed minister Aung Kyi and Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, began in October 2007 but stopped at the end of January after five meetings.

This will be Gambari's fourth visit to the country since the military junta violently suppressed anti-government protests last September, sparking global outcry.

Gambari described his last visit in March as a disappointment: Although he was allowed to meet Suu Kyi, he had no access to senior junta leaders.

The military has held authoritarian power in the Southeast Asian nation since 1962 and has been widely criticized for suppressing basic freedoms and human rights. The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising, killing as many as 3,000 people. It called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results after Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained continuously since May 2003, most of the time under house arrest.