Obama, meeting with Suu Kyi, says US ready to lift Myanmar sanctions
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi called on September 14 for the lifting of economic sanctions against her country, and President Barack Obama, in their first White House meeting since she became leader, said the United States was ready to do so.
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"It is the right thing to do in order to ensure that the people of Burma see rewards from a new way of doing business and a new government," Obama said with Suu Kyi beside him in the Oval Office.
The trip by Suu Kyi, 71, who like Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, capped a decades-long journey from political prisoner to national leader after her party won a sweeping electoral victory last year.
With Suu Kyi no longer an opposition figure, Washington has been weighing a further easing of sanctions against Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, as Obama looks to normalize relations with a country shunned when it was ruled by a military junta.
"We think that the time has now come to remove all the sanctions that hurt us economically," Suu Kyi said, noting that the US Congress had supported her country by backing sanctions in the past to apply pressure for democratic reforms.
