KEY POINTS:
NEW YORK - The United States Ambassador to the United Nations said yesterday that it was time to prepare for a government transition in Myanmar but conceded that the ruling military would continue to play a role in the country's future.
Zalmay Khalilzad spoke shortly before Western powers circulated to the Security Council's 15 members a substantially rewritten version of a proposed statement on the crushing of protests in Myanmar that they first drafted last week.
Though considerably watered down from the original, the statement calling for democratisation would still mark the first time all the world's major countries, including China, have focused public pressure on the ruling junta.
"We believe it's very important ... that there be negotiations for a transition and that we need to start preparing ourselves with regard to a transition in Burma," Khalilzad said.
"The military, as a national institution, has its role to play in the transition and post-transition but it's very important that a serious dialogue on transition begins and that the international community, regional players, play their roles."
The latest version of the proposed Security Council statement was circulated by the US, Britain and France.
The statement, recast after discussions with the other 12 council members, "strongly deplored" instead of "condemning" the repression of the demonstrators and took out a paragraph demanding a full account of those jailed, missing or killed.
It still called for the release of political detainees and a dialogue between the junta and the opposition, but it played up the role of the UN, in an apparent concession to China. It inserted a phrase about the international community "helping" Myanmar.
News of the regime's attempts at reconciliation with the Buddhist monks after its violent repression of pro-democracy protests came as the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said the junta should not affix conditions to its offer to meet her.
The junta has said it is willing to meet her only if she first renounces her calls for international sanctions.
- Independent, Reuters
