UNITED NATIONS – As Turtle Bay’s undersecretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, begins a three-day visit to Burma today, diplomats and dissidents say the success or failure of the trip will depend on whether the ruling military junta will allow him to meet jailed opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

“We have to see what he would do,” the policy director of the Washington based organization U.S. Campaign for Burma, Aung Din, said yesterday. “I don’t think he’ll be very successful if he is not allowed to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi. We expect Mr. Gambari to raise this issue.”

A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said only that the United Nations has “asked” the Burmese authorities for a meeting between Mr. Gambari, the first U.N. official to visit the country in more than two years, and Ms. Suu Kyi. As of yesterday, there was no indication the Burmese authorities would allow such a meeting.

Ms. Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy, has been jailed since 2003. According to published reports, the Burmese generals are expected to allow Mr. Gambari to meet only with NLD leaders who are approved by the government, which also will monitor the meetings.

The junta leaders recently began accusing the NLD, which was pushed aside after winning a 1990 election by a landslide, of having “links to terrorists.” At the same time, according to a recent U.N. report, the regime has boldly stepped up its war against the Karen minority group near the Thai border, using murder, rape, and torture.

“Our situation is the same as Darfur,” Mr. Din, himself a former political prisoner, told The New York Sun. Mr. Gambari’s visit, he added, is not mandated by a Security Council resolution. The military junta has ignored numerous toothless General Assembly resolutions, he said, while the council, which is charged with keeping global peace and security, has not even discussed Burma.

According to several diplomats, American attempts to raise the issue of human rights violations in Burma at the council have been rebuffed by China, one of the five permanent members with veto rights. China, India, and Thailand have recently improved relations with Burma, eyeing its natural gas resources.

“Upon Mr. Gambari’s return, we will request that he will brief the council,” a spokesman for the American mission to the United Nations, Richard Grenell, told the Sun yesterday.

In January, the U.N.’s special envoy to Burma, Razali Ismail, decided to quit, frustrated that Rangoon had not allowed him adequate access. Mr. Gambari’s current trip is designed to “convey a clear message that Myanmar’s [Burma’s] prospects for improved relations with the international community will depend on tangible progress in restoring democratic freedoms and full respect for human rights,” Mr. Dujarric said.

The United Nations has been using Myanmar, the country name preferred by the junta, but Mr. Din said his organization would not use that name, which the junta has imposed on the population. “We don’t want to accept these changes without having the people vote for them,” he said.