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Suu Kyi sets date for US visit: Party spokesman
Myanmar’s democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to the United States next Sunday, a spokesman for her party said, in a trip that will see her awarded Washington’s highest honour.
It will be her first visit to the US since she was put under house arrest in 1990.
“The lady will travel on September 16,” said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel laureate’s National League for Democracy party told AFP, without adding further details.
As part of her visit Suu Kyi, who was elected to parliament this year in a dramatic sign of Myanmar's reforms, will travel to Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.
The medal is the top honour bestowed by the US Congress, which voted to award it to Suu Kyi in May 2008 when the prospect of her leaving Myanmar looked remote.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited the democracy champion to Washington when she paid a landmark visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, in December.
Suu Kyi, 67, made her first forays outside Myanmar in more than two decades earlier this year, with visits to Thailand, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Britain and France, receiving rock star welcomes along the way and being lauded as a model of peaceful resistance to dictatorship.
The trip allowed her to finally give her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo and to receive awards granted during the almost two decades she spent under house arrest.
Myanmar’s democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to the United States next Sunday, a spokesman for her party said, in a trip that will see her awarded Washington’s highest honour.
It will be her first visit to the US since she was put under house arrest in 1990.
“The lady will travel on September 16,” said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel laureate’s National League for Democracy party told AFP, without adding further details.
As part of her visit Suu Kyi, who was elected to parliament this year in a dramatic sign of Myanmar's reforms, will travel to Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.
The medal is the top honour bestowed by the US Congress, which voted to award it to Suu Kyi in May 2008 when the prospect of her leaving Myanmar looked remote.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited the democracy champion to Washington when she paid a landmark visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, in December.
Suu Kyi, 67, made her first forays outside Myanmar in more than two decades earlier this year, with visits to Thailand, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Britain and France, receiving rock star welcomes along the way and being lauded as a model of peaceful resistance to dictatorship.
The trip allowed her to finally give her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo and to receive awards granted during the almost two decades she spent under house arrest.
