By: AFP
- Published: 31/01/2009 at 06:08 AM
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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