YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Friday that she is "very optimistic" about the U.N.-promoted effort to start talks between the military government and pro-democracy forces, but appeared resigned to remaining under house arrest.
Suu Kyi made her observations in a meeting with top executives of her National League for Democracy party, who were allowed contact with her for the first time in more than three years.
Suu Kyi looked "fit, well and energetic like before. She is full of ideas," said party spokesman Nyan Win, who attended the hour-long meeting at a government guest house along with three top party members. Suu Kyi was taken to the guest house from her home nearby where she is kept under house arrest.
Their meeting, held far from the public and press, was permitted by the government after U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Thursday completed a six-day visit to Myanmar to promote a dialogue between the ruling junta and Suu Kyi.
Nyan Win, speaking after he and his colleagues met for about an hour with Suu Kyi, said the 1991 Nobel peace laureate believes the military authorities now have the will to achieve national reconciliation.
He said she told her fellow party leaders that the government's crackdown on September's mass pro-democracy demonstrations was "devastating for the NLD, the government and the people."
"She said a healing process such as the release of political prisoners is essential," according to Nyan Win. Myanmar held more than 1,100 political prisoners before the crackdown, and the number now is difficult to estimate. Thousands of people have been rounded up since late September, though the government says most have been released.
Suu Kyi also held talks with Aung Kyi, who was appointed the junta's "minister for relations" with the former Nobel Peace Prize winner last month amid the severe worldwide criticism of the junta.
Appearing to concede that she will remain detained for the immediate future, she told her colleagues that she will ask for two liaison officers of her choice to help her communicate with them. She said she will also ask Aung Kyi to make arrangements so that she can see the other party leaders whenever necessary.
Suu Kyi has been in government detention for 12 of the past 18 years, and continuously since May 2003.
The government unexpectedly announced Thursday night that Suu Kyi would be allowed to meet with her party's top officials.
Its statement, broadcast on state radio and television, came just hours after the U.N.'s Gambari ended his second mission to broker negotiations between the military regime and pro-democracy leaders.
Gambari met with Suu Kyi for an hour Thursday and released a statement on her behalf after leaving the country. It was apparently her first public message since her latest detention began in 2003.
"In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to cooperate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success," Suu Kyi said in her statement, which Gambari read aloud Thursday evening in Singapore.
Her message also slightly prodded the junta, officially known as the State Peace and Development Council, to move more quickly in dealing with her, saying she hoped that preliminary consultations with Aung Kyi could be concluded soon "so that a meaningful and time-bound dialogue with the SPDC leadership can start as early as possible."
The roots of Myanmar's crisis are in the military's refusal to hand over power after Suu Kyi's party won a 1990 general election. The junta now says it is following a seven step "road map" to democracy that is supposed to culminate in free elections, though it has not set a time line for the process.
In the streets of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, residents said they were hopeful that Suu Kyi's meeting would lay the groundwork for reconciliation. "Conditions have been created to move forward," said Ohn Myint, a 67-year-old lawyer.
With the reconciliation process in its earliest stage, Myanmar experts are cautious about its prospects.
"My reaction is extreme skepticism that this will lead to real dialogue between her and the (junta), or genuine political change," said Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar expert at Meio University in Japan. "The (government) likes to move Suu Kyi and the NLD around like pieces on a chessboard, to satisfy the international community."
