Obama to visit Myanmar: White House confirms Asia trip details (+video)

President Obama, newly re-elected, will visit Southeast Asia this month. His itinerary will include stops in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. His visit to Myanmar will be viewed as an endorsement of that country's recent transformation.?

By Matt Spetalnick and Aung Hla Tun,?Reuters / November 8, 2012

This file photo shows Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meeting with Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar. President Barack Obama will embark on a trip to Southeast Asia and become the first U.S. president to visit Cambodia as well as Myanmar where he will hail the country?s shift to democracy after five decades of military rule.

AP Photo/Khin Maung Win, File

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President?Barack Obama?will visit Myanmar this month and meet both its president and its iconic opposition leader, marking a new milestone in U.S. efforts to promote democratic reforms in the once-isolated Southeast Asian country.

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Aung San Suu Kyi has made a trip that for years she could only dream of. The opposition leader of Myanmar - formerly Burma - has held private talks with US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House.

Obama will travel to Myanmar as part of a Nov. 17-20 tour of?Southeast Asia?that will include stops in?Thailand?and?Cambodia, the?White House?said on Thursday as it confirmed details of his first international trip since voters gave him a second term in an election on Tuesday.

The visit to Myanmar, the first by a sitting U.S. president, will give Obama a chance to hold talks with President?Thein Sein?and Nobel Peace Prize laureate?Aung San Suu Kyi?to encourage the country's "ongoing democratic transition,"?White House?spokesman?Jay Carney?said.

Obama's presence in Myanmar, also known as Burma, will be the strongest endorsement so far from the international community of the country's transformation under the quasi-civilian government of?Thein Sein, who took office in March 2011 after decades of military rule.

The visit will allow Obama to highlight what many see as a first-term foreign policy accomplishment in helping to push Myanmar's generals onto the path of democratic change. Obama will be in Myanmar on Nov. 19, according to a senior government source in?Yangon.

He is going ahead with the trip despite recent sectarian violence in?western Myanmar, which has drawn concern from the?United States, the?European Union?and U.N. human rights investigators.

Some 89 people were killed in clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and minority Muslim Rohingyas, according to the latest official toll covering the last 10 days of October. Many thousands more have been displaced by the violence.

Sanctions eased?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/rUv9Pu6-Ruk/Obama-to-visit-Myanmar-White-House-confirms-Asia-trip-details-video

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