UN envoy to visit Burma

Aung San Suu Kyi has been held incommunicado since May

The United Nations has announced it is sending special envoy Razali Ismail to Burma to seek the immediate release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Razali will travel on 30 September and hopes to meet both Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Monday.

Senior Indonesian envoy Ali Alatas is currently in the country, in a separate effort to secure her release.

The opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner has been in detention since some of her supporters clashed with a junta-backed crowd on 30 May.

The secretary-general [Kofi Annan] remains concerned about the well being of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Fred Eckhard UN spokesman

Mr Razali saw Aung San Suu Kyi during his last trip to Burma in June.

The 58-year-old opposition leader has been allowed to receive only a few visitors since her detention, and her condition remains difficult to verify.

Last Wednesday, she was admitted to a hospital in Rangoon for an operation to remove her uterus.

During his forthcoming visit, Mr Razali is expected to "find out her condition" and press for her "unconditional release", Mr Eckhard said.

Cautious optimism

The international community has repeatedly asked for Aung San Suu Kyi to be freed, with both the United States and the European Union imposing sanctions on Burma in an effort to pressure it into compliance.

But Burma's ruling junta says the opposition leader is being held for her own protection, and will only be freed when political tensions cool.

Indonesia is the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which has also been pressing Burma to release Aung San Suu Kyi ahead of the bloc's summit in October.

Mr Alatas, who is reported to have met Burma's senior leader General Than Shwe in Rangoon on Tuesday, appeared unlikely to meet Aung San Suu Kyi as well.

A spokesman for the Indonesian Foreign Ministry told the BBC that he was cautiously optimistic that she would be released.