Report: Junta May Meet Suu Kyi

YANGON — The head of Burma's military junta told a U.N. envoy this week that he is willing to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but with certain preconditions, the state media reported today.

It also said nearly 2,100 people were arrested in last week's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, and almost 700 have been released.

Senior General Than Shwe told a U.N. special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, during their talks Tuesday that he is willing to meet Ms. Suu Kyi if she gives up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions on it, Burma state TV and radio reported.

General Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that "in her dealings with the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions, and all other sanctions," state media said.

"If she abandons these calls, Senior General Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the media said. Daw is a term of respect for older women.

Ms. Suu Kyi has said in the past she supports economic sanctions against the military junta, but she has not publicly called for devastation of her homeland or the government.

A spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, Nyan Win, scoffed at the general's offer. "Applying such conditions shows that the government is not really sincere to meet her," he said. NLD executives are allowed no contact with Ms. Suu Kyi.

General Than Shwe's preconditions are not new — the junta has regularly called on Ms. Suu Kyi to give up her confrontational attitude — but it is the first time the junta leader has said he is willing to meet with her.

This willingness is remarkable given that General Than Shwe has a visceral dislike for the Nobel peace laureate and is said to get angry even at the mention of her name. Ms. Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is not known to have met a senior junta leader since 2002.

The reports gave no indication that the junta was prepared to lift restrictions on Ms. Suu Kyi or on members of her NLD party, which has often called for a dialogue with the government but has been rebuffed. Ms. Suu Kyi's party won national elections in 1990 but the generals refused to give up power.