ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

by Mungpi | New Delhi (Mizzima) - United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday said he will not visit Burma despite a petition by over 110 former world leaders to visit and press Burma's military junta to free all political prisoners before the end of this year.

In response to the call, Michele Montas, spokesperson of the Secretary General, on Wednesday said the world body chief has reiterated his commitment to remain engaged on the Burmese issue both personally and through his special adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, but will not make a visit unless there are "reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome."

Yesterday, 112 former presidents and prime ministers urged Ban Ki-moon to pay a visit to Burma and press the junta to release all political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Signatories to the petition, initiated by former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, include former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and John Major and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

But Montas on said the secretary general "said he would like to visit Myanmar [Burma] again to discuss a broad range of issues but that he will not be able to do so without reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome."

She also said Ban's special envoy to Burma would not revisit the Southeast Asian nation "unless there was a real possibility of moving forward there."

Ban visited military-ruled Burma in May, in the wake of deadly Cyclone Nargis, to convince its rulers to allow increased access for international aid workers and relief materials to help cyclone survivors. The cyclone left at least 130,000 dead or missing and devastated the lives of 2.4 million people in Burma's Rangoon and Irrawaddy Divisions.

Ban on Wednesday received the letter and a phone call from former Norwegian Prime Minister Bondevik, the architect of the letter. The petition urged the world body chief to push for the release of all political prisoners in Burma, even if he chose not to return to the country.

The petition and the response of the UN chief come amidst the Burmese junta's continued sentencing of dissidents to long prison terms and transferring them to remote prisons across the country.

On Wednesday, the junta transferred a popular hip-hop singer, Zeya Thaw, arrested for his involvement in last year's protests, to a prison in Burma's southernmost town of Kawthaung.