BANGKOK, Thailand - The long-detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a government official in Burma on Thursday in the first tangible sign that the generals were responding to outside pressure after crushing a popular uprising last month.
Confirming reports from foreign diplomats, state television announced that the meeting had lasted for an hour and 15 minutes at a guesthouse a few minutes' drive from her home, where she has been held under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.
A U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, had pressed the generals to open a dialogue when he visited Burma at the beginning of the month, and state television said Suu Kyi had met with a special "minister for relations" appointed after that visit. That minister is anexperienced government envoy, Aung Kyi, who is described by diplomats as personable and capable.
The meeting comes as Gambari is visiting Asian nations to coordinate policy before returning for a second visit to Burma in November.
The junta, which has ruled Burma for the past two decades, continues to face criticism and new economic sanctions from abroad a month after violently crushing anti-government demonstrations that were led by tens of thousands of Buddhist monks.
The government has said 10 people died in the crackdown, but foreign diplomats and human-rights groups with contacts inside the closed nation say they are certain that thenumber is far higher.
The military is also continuing a campaign of intimidation and arrests and appears to have rounded up most of the leaders of the demonstrations, including both pro-democracy activists and monks.
The meeting with Suu Kyi is the first to be announced by the government, although it is not known whether other meetings have taken place.
Shortly after Gambari's visit, the junta's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said he was ready to meet with her, but he set conditions.
He said she should stop advocating economic sanctions and abandon what he called her backing for "confrontation" and "utter devastation."
Because she is under house arrest and incommunicado, her response to this proposal is not known.
Than Shwe met once withSuu Kyi, in 2002, in one of a series of talks she held with the junta under the mediation of a previous U.N. envoy. But the junta has refused to meet with her since then.
She has publicly stated her willingness to find a compromise solution and has said the military should play an important role in any democratic government. The nation has been ruled by the military since 1962 and now depends on military officers to run most of its institutions and industries.
Gambari met Thursday with officials in China, which is an important trading partner anddiplomatic supporter of the Burmese government.
While joining international condemnation of the violent crackdown, Beijing has already stated that it does not support the economic sanctions that are the main lever foreign countries have to press the generals.
A senior Chinese official, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, repeated that position Thursday, according to reports from Beijing, telling Gambari, "The [Burma] issue, after all, has to be appropriately resolved by its own people and government through their own efforts of dialogue and conciliation."
Front Section, Pages 7 on 10/26/2007