U.S. envoy Kurt Campbell says he is disappointed with the outcome of his latest mission to Burma, where he urged the country's military rulers to hold free and fair elections later this year.
Campbell was speaking Monday in Rangoon a day after meeting with members of the Burmese government in their administrative capital, Naypyidaw.
The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia held talks in Rangoon with members of Burma's opposition National League for Democracy. He also met separately with detained NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a Rangoon guesthouse for more than an hour.
Burma's military authorities drove her to the guesthouse from her Rangoon home where she is under house arrest. She and Campbell discussed the Burmese military's plan to hold elections this year for the first time in 20 years.
Senior NLD member Win Tin says he told Campbell that Washington should increase political and economic pressure on Burma's ruling military to hold credible elections.
Burma's government dissolved the NLD Friday for refusing to accept government terms for participating in the elections by a Friday deadline.
The NLD rejected those terms because they would have required it to revoke the party membership of all political prisoners, including its own leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The NLD also would have had to accept the military's nullification of its victory in Burma's last elections in 1990.
Some leading members of the NLD said Friday they were forming a breakaway faction to compete in the upcoming elections.
Campbell's previous trip to Burma in November made him the highest-level U.S. official to visit that country in years. During a stop in Bangkok Sunday, Campbell told reporters that Washington has real concerns about Burma's election laws and the environment they have created.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
