WASHINGTON--Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi called on Wednesday 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.
"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 U.S. Congress had supported her country by backing sanctions in the past to apply pressure for democratic reforms.
As Suu Kyi arrived for the meeting, the White House issued a statement saying it would reinstate Myanmar to the Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, which provides duty-free treatment for goods from poor and developing countries. Myanmar was removed from GSP benefits in 1989 following pro-democracy uprisings a year earlier that were brutally suppressed by the ruling military junta. Myanmar will be back in the program on Nov. 13, U.S. officials said.
Reinstating those benefits, combined with lifting sanctions, "will give the United States, our businesses, our non-profit institutions greater incentive to invest and participate in what we hope will be an increasingly democratic and prosperous partner for us in the region," Obama said.
After visiting the White House, Suu Kyi met with some members of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol. She was to return there on Thursday for meetings with House and Senate leaders from both parties, although not Paul Ryan, the Republican House speaker. Ryan's aides said he had a scheduling conflict.
Some members of Congress have expressed concerns about change in Myanmar and its human rights record. They have introduced at least two pieces of legislation seeking to give lawmakers some influence on the process of easing sanctions.
Republican U.S. Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented after meeting with Suu Kyi that while the new administration brought hope to Myanmar, he remained committed to efforts to protect its oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority.
