Two of the architects of political reconciliation in Myanmar – also known as Burma
– met Wednesday for the first time since historic by-elections were held earlier this
month. President Thein Sein and opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi discussed democratization, parliamentary affairs and a peace process with
ethnic rebels, according to a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
party.
Burma Campaign UK’s director Mark Farmaner spoke about the significance
of the meeting. “It’s being seen as very significant now, because at the last meeting
in August it was considered they had agreed on a plan whereby the electoral laws in
Burma would be reformed that would allow the NLD to register as a party and they would
then take part in the by-elections and there would also be the release of some political
prisoners," he said. "So that’s the process that has happened between now and August.”
Farmaner
said Burma is facing a choice about the future of reform in the country: “Will Thein
Sein the president today be saying to Suu Kyi ‘That’s it, you’re inside the parliament
now, any further change you want you work inside the parliament’… or will he be prepared
to find an additional mechanism and work with her… to take forward the next stages
in reform. This will be quite a critical choice that is being made here about what
he is prepared to do.”
Listen to the complete interview of Mark Farmaner
with Christopher Wells: