Obama spoke after an Oval Office meeting Wednesday with the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Facing political pressure at home, Suu Kyi had reportedly requested that the USA lift an executive order authorizing sanctions against the Southeast Asian nation.
“In part because of the progress we’ve seen over the last several months, I indicated after consulting with Daw Suu that the United States is now prepared to lift sanctions we’ve imposed upon Burma for quite some time”, CNN quoted Obama as saying.
Meanwhile, in a joint statement signed by two governments, the White House said the United States “will terminate the National Emergency with respect to Myanmar and will revoke the Executive Order-based framework of the Burma sanctions program”.
An immediate question for Obama administration officials during her visit is whether the time has come to lift the remaining sanctions on Myanmar and to encourage military-to-military cooperation and development aid.
“We have a constitution that is not very democratic, because it gives the military a special place in politics”, she said.
Officially Suu Kyi is foreign minister and self-appointed state counsellor – a role akin to prime minister.
President Barack Obama made the announcement as he hosted Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi in Washington.
A group of 46 NGOs circulated a letter they wrote to Obama on Monday calling for the president to uphold the sanctions.
Nevertheless, behind the scenes, Suu Kyi may still be advocating for making the removal of the last vestiges of the USA sanctions regime conditional on the military’s willingness to reform the 2008 constitution, which gives the army control of several key ministries and one quarter of the seats in parliament. The sanctions did little to stem the rise of crony capitalism, but non-engagement did provide useful political and economic opportunities for neighbouring countries to bolster their influence, particularly China. But penalties meant to block the drug trade and to bar military trade with North Korea would still apply, as would a visa ban barring some former and current members of the military from travelling to the U.S. Lawmakers engaged on Myanmar policy are deeply suspicious about opening up engagement between the US and Myanmar militaries. But strong opposition from sections of the lower house and human rights groups remains.
More than 100 ethnic Rohingya Muslims were killed there during sectarian rioting in 2012; thousands more tried to escape by boat to Malaysia or Thailand. But the USA has retained more targeted restrictions on military-owned companies and officials and associates of the former ruling junta.
Unsafe practices in the jade industry have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of small-scale miners, while mining revenues have been used to finance the long-running conflict between the military and the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar’s north. Formerly the country was known as Burma.
The global tour is aimed at securing broad-based worldwide endorsement for the new government (particularly in the context of worldwide doubt regarding the capacity of the National League for Democracy to govern with little to no prior policy experience).
Myanmar now has democratically-elected civilian leadership for the first time in over half a century, and is focused on bringing peace and national reconciliation, economic prosperity and social welfare, and respect for human rights to its people, it said.
“We want to make sure that everybody who is entitled to citizenship is accorded citizenship as quickly and as fairly as possible”.
“We are honest in trying to bring together the different communities”, Suu Kyi said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Obama moved to restore trade benefits to Myanmar that had been suspended more than two decades ago amid rights abuses. The United States intends to sign a loan guarantee with five local microfinance institutions to support over US$10 million in loans to small businesses in Myanmar, which will increase access to food and support employment opportunities for communities in Myanmar. The benefits will be reinstated as of November, following a review that includes whether the country is trying to improve conditions for workers, according a statement issued by the USA trade representative. “She was imprisoned in her own house”, he said.
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She is trying to strike a balance between showing her people the economic rewards of a democratic transition while keeping pressure on the country’s generals for further reforms. When Obama last visited Myanmar in November 2014, he voiced support for constitutional reform.
