EU gauges Burma's progress

Aung San Suu Kyi wants to negotiate with the junta

The first European Union delegation to Burma since opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released in May has been holding talks in the capital Rangoon.

It is unclear if Burma's generals are ready to make concessions

In the course of the three day visit the delegates are scheduled to meet government ministers, including the military intelligence chief, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt and Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Sunday they met with ethnic minority leaders who called for the release of political prisoners and the setting up of a national parliament, a local politician reported.

The visit by the four-member EU team is aimed at promoting political reconciliation within Burma. The junta has not held substantive talks with Aung San Suu Kyi since her release.

Calls for parliament

The mission includes senior diplomats from Denmark, which holds the current EU presidency, Greece, next in line to take over the presidency, and the European Commission.

In two separate meetings on Sunday the delegates met representatives from eight ethnic groups, said Dr Saw Mra Aung, chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy, an unregistered political party.

	Aung San Suu Kyi 1988: Aung San Suu Kyi supports pro-democracy uprising 1989: Placed under house arrest 1990: NLD wins election by landslide. Military rejects result 1995: Freed from house arrest 2000: Placed under house arrest 2002: Released unconditionally Profile: Click here

Members of the Shan, Rakine and Mon ethnic groups told the delegates that they supported political reconciliation, the release of political prisoners and the revival of banned political parties.

They are also striving for the convening of a national parliament based on the results of the disputed election in 1990.

The BBC's Burma analyst, Larry Jagan, said that the EU officials are not optimistic that this latest mission to Rangoon will produce any serious concessions from the military junta.

But it will give the senior European diplomats an opportunity to assess what progress has been made in Burma, since Aung San Suu Kyi was released.

The EU team will be urging the generals to release all the country's political prisoners as soon as possible, and to start substantive political talks with the opposition leader.

The EU maintains stringent restrictions on Burma and correspondents say the meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi will be instrumental in deciding whether they need to relax their isolation of Rangoon in the near future.

But the military authorities will have to prove their commitment to political change with concrete actions, not just promises, a senior EU official told the BBC.

The very minimum, he said, would be a meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and a senior general to discuss a tentative agenda for political talks.

Only then would the EU seriously consider changing its common position on Burma.