Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
WASHINGTON – Evidence that Myanmar and North Korea are exchanging weapons and even nuclear material isn’t conclusive, an Obama administration official said Wednesday, “but it is a concern.”
Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told a Senate committee that derailing those ties is part of the reason to have direct talks with Myanmar’s military rulers.
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. would keep its trade ban against Myanmar but would attempt to talk to the government because “engagement versus sanctions is a false choice.”
Direct talks would reverse the U.S. policy of trying to freeze out the military rulers who have been in control for two decades. Campbell said he had discussions in New York this week with a top official.
Campbell said the conversation was just a first step in thawing relations. But he said the overtures are an important step in the effort to nudge Myanmar’s rulers in the direction the U.S. and other Western countries want.
Asked whether there is any indication that Myanmar is violating a U.N. resolution that prohibits members of the United Nations from buying or selling weapons – including nuclear weapons – with North Korea, Campbell said he did not want to answer in a public hearing.
But he said there is evidence the trade “has extended into areas that are prohibited” by the U.N. resolution.
“One of the goals of this dialogue between the United States and Burma is to make very clear what our expectations are in this respect,” he said.
Myanmar is also known as Burma, and the official U.S. policy is to call the country “Burma.”
In a briefing with reporters Tuesday, Campbell said lifting the trade ban “would send the wrong signal. We will tell the Burmese that we will discuss easing sanctions only if they take actions on our core concerns.”
David Williams, an Indiana University law professor who has worked with the Burmese democracy movement since 2000, agreed with that approach.
“In order to make demands,” he said at the hearing, “we must be able to give the (Myanmar) regime something. If we relax sanctions now, rather than in response to real progress, then we will have that much less to offer.”
Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, issued a statement Wednesday saying he doesn’t agree with the Obama administration’s approach.
Souder, whose northeast Indiana district includes about 3,000 Burmese who have fled the country that has been mired in civil war for 60 years, said direct talks with the government in Rangoon would be “ludicrous.”
“We cannot engage in talks with a brutal military dictatorship,” he said.
He said the junta “must end the current violence against its citizens, establish the rightfully elected leader and draft a constitution that creates a true possibility for civilian leadership. Until we see this kind of progress, the U.S. must not give validity to this illegitimate government.”
