October 06, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 23, 1428

YANGON: Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will consider positively a heavily conditioned offer to meet the head of the junta, her party said on Friday, as a US envoy headed to meet the isolated regime’s leaders.

The ruling generals made the offers of dialogue as the United Nations prepared to discuss the violent crackdown on the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in almost 20 years in the country formerly called Burma.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest, is a living symbol of the pro-democracy movement that last week brought up to 100,000 people onto the streets of Yangon.

While the top general, Than Shwe, Myanmar’s state media late on Thursday said he was willing to see Suu Kyi if she ends her support for sanctions against the regime.

Aung San Suu Kyi would consider the offer “in a positive light,” said Nyan Win, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD). “It’s up to Daw (Ms) Aung San Suu Kyi to decide,” he said.

The regime extended the rare offer of talks as UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared to brief the UN Security Council on his four-day trip this week to Myanmar, during which he met both the top general and the opposition leader.—AFP