JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Thailand’s foreign minister met with ousted Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week, he told reporters Wednesday, her first known meeting with a foreign envoy since she was detained following a 2021 coup.
“There was a meeting, she was in good health and it was a good meeting,” Don Pramudwinai told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
Suu Kyi has been detained since the putsch on 1 February 2021 that ended Myanmar’s brief democratic experiment and plunged the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil.
The Nobel laureate, 78, was later hit with a raft of charges and jailed by a junta court for a total of 33 years in trials that rights groups slammed as a sham.
Don confirmed that he met with Suu Kyi on Sunday and that she had called for renewed talks to end the crisis.
“She encouraged dialogue,” Don said.
Don said he was advocating for “engagement with the authority in Naypyidaw”, referring to the junta rulers in the country’s capital.
Suu Kyi has been seen only once since the coup — in grainy state media photos from a bare courtroom in the military-built capital.
The junta has rebuffed repeated requests by foreign diplomats to meet with Suu Kyi, and for much of her trial, her lawyers were barred from speaking to the media.
In June last year, she was transferred from house arrest in Naypyidaw to solitary confinement in prison.
— AFP
