She said that USA sanctions helped drive the country’s military junta to surrender power, but that the time had come to lift them. She did so at a breakfast meeting earlier Wednesday with Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders.
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Suu Kyi said it was time to remove remaining sanctions, which have kept USA companies and banks leery of involvement in one of Asia’s last untapped markets.
The official and aides spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of Obama’s formal announcement.
The move on Wednesday to let Myanmar back in to the Generalized System of Preferences is likely to have a significant, but limited economic impact.
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 US.
Myanmar’s military and democratic government share common views on matching Myanmar’s opening to the West with maintaining strong ties to China. He said greater USA engagement would promote its ability to promote change.
Ms Suu Kyi on Tuesday met British Prime Minister Theresa May during her first visit to London since becoming Myanmar’s de facto leader, with the thorny issue of human rights on the agenda.
Mr Robertson acknowledged the release of political prisoners, but cited the continued arrests of civil society activists, as well as the government’s failure to repeal laws limiting free speech and the rights of religious minorities and its indifference to the plight of the Rohingya. She has been criticized in the past for not being vocal about the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority, which has always been denied citizenship in the Buddhist-majority nation. The military, she says, “still controls much of the economy and retains great political power”. U.S. President George W. Bush imposed new sanctions, banning the import of products from Myanmar and the export of financial services, placing a freeze on the assets of certain Burmese financial institutions, and extending visa restrictions on Burmese officials.
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.
She said top priority was national reconciliation.
“So I think that does reflect important progress inside of Myanmar and I think given that progress, I think it makes sense that the national emergency would be withdrawn and the sanctions lifted”, he said in response to a question. There are no Western banks or U.S. airlines now operating in Myanmar, he said.
“We are honest in trying to bring together the different communities”, Suu Kyi said.
The United States first imposed sanctions on Myanmar in 1997, when the military junta ruled.
It includes reinstating trade benefits for poorer nations, suspended in 1989 by George W.Bush over human rights abuses.
One of the chief issues at Suu Kyi’s meetings will be whether the remaining American sanctions should be lifted.
She last visited Washington in 2012 when she was still opposition leader. On the other hand, Suu Kyi is wary of losing what she still considers a powerful political bargaining chip against the military.
“As a result of the SDN list and major investment annual reporting requirements, American companies are at a disadvantage when it comes to speed and cost of investing in Myanmar”, he said, noting that any further easing by the USA government would be “gratefully accepted”.
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Khin Maung Lwin, permanent secretary from the Ministry of Commerce, said the changes would help shine a light on shadowy industries like the jade trade, worth billions of dollars and run by illicit gangs and corrupt military officials that has fuelled decades of violence in Myanmar’s borderlands.
