Burma regime 'frees 70 detainees'

Soldiers guarded Rangoon's Shwedagon Pagoda again on Friday

At least 70 people detained in Burma during recent anti-government protests have been released, an opposition party official has said.

About 50 members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) are said to have been among those freed.

An NLD spokesman said they walked free on Thursday, the same day Ms Suu Kyi, herself detained since May 2003, met a Burmese government official.

Separately, Burmese troops returned to Rangoon's streets on Friday.

Armed soldiers surrounded the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, both focal points for last month's violently suppressed protests.

This should lead to the early resumption of dialogue that will lead to very concrete and tangible results Ibrahim Gambari UN special envoy

But there were no signs of fresh demonstrations, despite crowds of pilgrims taking to the streets to mark the end of Buddhist Lent.

'First step'

The detainees freed on Thursday had been kept at Insein Prison in Rangoon, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the NLD.

They included the party's senior executive, Hla Pe, who is in his 80s, he added.

Burma's junta has been under intense pressure from the United Nations since September's bloody crackdown.

A month on, hundreds of political prisoners are thought to remain in detention.

Analysts say the recent diplomatic offensive was the reason for Thursday's hour-long meeting between Ms Suu Kyi and a newly-appointed government liaison officer.

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has been urging Burma's top generals to engage in dialogue with the opposition.

On Friday he visited Japan - part of a whistle-stop tour aiming to build international consensus over the situation among Burma's neighbours and key trading allies.

Ms Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Mr Gambari said the meeting between Ms Suu Kyi and the junta official was only a first step.>

"This should lead to the early resumption of dialogue that will lead to very concrete and tangible results," he said.

Previous attempts to open discourse between the NLD leader, who is under house arrest in Rangoon, and the military have come to nothing.

The opposition party won a convincing victory in elections in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.