State counsellor and foreign minister Aung San Suu Kyi has accepted an invitation from US President Barack Obama to visit the states before the end of his term in November, Reuters reports.
The visit will take place at a “mutually convenient time,” the foreign ministry told the news wire, while another official speculated it would happen during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York city in September.
“She accepted President Obama’s invitation to visit the US before his presidency ends,” said Aye Aye Soe, a spokeswoman at the foreign ministry.
The invite came during the two-day visit by top Obama aide and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes.
Rhodes met with Suu Kyi in the capital on Wednesday.
He spent the afternoon talking to students at Yangon University, where he announced an additional $21 million in US funding to support economic development amid the post-election transition in Myanmar.
It was his fifth trip here, the first being in 2012. Reflecting on then and now, he said yesterday he was amazed at how many changes had taken place in so short a time, but that more needed to be done to make a full transition to democracy and address ongoing religious tensions in Rakhine state.
He said the US wanted to ultimately lift remaining sanctions against Myanmar, but added that there were “still profound issues that need to be addressed” on the relationship of the civilian government and the military, which still controls 25 percent of parliamentary seats.
“So this is a process or evaluation that is not complete,” he said.
Rhodes met with members of the 88 Generation Thursday. According to a post on the US embassy’s Facebook page, “the group discussed the important role the media and civil society organizations will continue to play as Myanmar continues along the path towards democracy, and ways the United States can continue to be a partner and a friend to the people of Myanmar.”
