EU to reward Myanmar for reforms: Juppe

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (R) and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe (L) during the press conference at the Suu Kyi’s house in Yangon, yesterday

France’s foreign minister said yesterday that the European Union would respond “in concrete terms” to recent reforms by Myanmar’s regime, after a historic meeting with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Alain Juppe is the highest level French diplomat to ever visit the country also known as Burma, long criticised by the West for its human rights record and ruled outright by the military for almost five decades until last year.
The nominally civilian government which took power last year has surprised observers with a series of reformist moves, including dialogue with Suu Kyi’s opposition, which was recently allowed to re-register as a political party.
“Like the rest of the international community, we have observed with a lot of attention the positive signs given by President Thein Sein,” Juppe said.
“We will respond – France and the EU – positively and in concrete terms to these significant gestures,” he told reporters after meeting Suu Kyi at the lakeside home where she was detained for most of the past two decades.
It was unclear whether he was alluding to a relaxation of EU sanctions on the regime, whose recent reforms have surprised even sceptics.
On Friday the regime released about 300 political prisoners, including several prominent dissidents, a day after signing a ceasefire with a major armed Karen ethnic minority group.
 It is not clear how many more political prisoners are still behind bars, but a Myanmar government minister said Saturday that 128 detainees could not be released for security reasons because they had committed serious crimes.
“We hope that these new developments will reinforce the process of democratisation and national reconciliation,” Suu Kyi, who was freed by the regime in November 2010, said after her talks with Juppe.
“One of our main concerns is to achieve an end to the ethnic conflicts,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner added.
Juppe was due to award Suu Kyi with one of France’s highest honours, Commander in the National Order of the Legion d’Honneur, at a ceremony later yesterday, in recognition of her long struggle for democracy.
Juppe will hold talks today in the capital Naypyidaw with Thein Sein, whose government is eager to see the end of sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States and the European Union since the late 1990s.
He told reporters that France would press the regime to ensure parliamentary by-elections due to be held on April 1 are “free and fair”, after a general election in November 2010 was denounced by the West as a sham.
 Juppe is the first French foreign minister in history to visit the Southeast Asian country, which gained independence from Britain in 1948, and the first French minister to visit since a popular uprising was brutally crushed in 1988.

AFP