Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Scot Marciel, a deputy assistant secretary met with Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday in Rangoon in a visit that marked the highest-level talks between an American diplomat and Myanmar’s detained opposition leader in 14 years.

First meeting in more than a decade
The meeting between Campbell and Suu Kyi held in a hotel in Rangoon during two hours and then Campbell will also have talks with representatives of the military junta during his two-day visit to Burma.

Suu Kyi has been struggling with health problems in recent years, but looked brilliant when she left the meeting with Campbell.

Dressed in a traditional pink jacket, the 64-year-old democracy leader joked briefly with reporters as she left the meeting.

“Do I look pretty when I smile?” she joked with the photographers. “Hello to you all,” she added, before being driven away.

The meeting was the first time for years that Aung San Suu Kyi, whose detention will prevent her from taking part in national elections planned for next year, had been permitted to leave her home or the government guesthouse, with the exception of brief visits to the notorious Insein prison, scene of her widely derided trial this summer.

Steps toward dialog
The visit is definitely a result of President Barack Obama’s new line toward Burma, as for many years, the United States had isolated the junta diplomatically and applied political and economic sanctions, which have failed to force the generals to respect human rights or release jailed political activists.

However, while U.S. officials are now sitting down with the generals, Washington has said it will maintain the sanctions until talks result in change.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s situation will be discussed when Barack Obama, the US president, meets Southeast Asian leaders at a regional summit in Singapore in mid-November, Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, said on Tuesday, adding that Thein Sein was expected to attend.

Living arrested
Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year’s elections, the first in two decades.

Critics say the arrest and continued detention were designed to keep her away from the public eye until elections scheduled to take place in 2010, as a result the sentence was roundly condemned by the international community.