July 21, 2008	Monday	Rajab 17, 1429

SINGAPORE: Military-ruled Myanmar could release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in about half a year, once a maximum detention period of six years has expired, Singapore’s foreign minister said on Sunday.

The Nobel peace laureate’s confinement to her lakeside home in Yangon was extended in May despite international pleas to the generals to end her latest stretch of detention, which began in May 2003.

“Under their law the maximum period of detention for Daw Sang Suu Kyi is one year as approved by the home ministry and five more years as approved by the prime minister as a cabinet decision ... meaning a maximum of six years,” Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo quoted Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Nyan Win as saying.

“And he told us the six-year limit will come up in about half a year,” Yeo said after a dinner with his Southeast Asian counterparts in Singapore.

Asked whether this meant Suu Kyi could be released in six months, he said: “I am just repeating to you what he (Nyan Win) told me and I think that is not an inaccurate inference.”

Suu Kyi has been confined for nearly 13 of the past 19 years, with her telephone line cut and all visitors barred apart from her cook and occasionally her doctor. It was not clear what the expiry of the six-year period Nyan Win referred to would have in practice.—Reuters