U.S. delegation in Myanmar for rare talks with junta

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - A delegation of senior U.S. officials, pursuing a new dialogue, met with Myanmar's military rulers on Tuesday in the highest-level talks with the reclusive junta in 14 years.

The move by President Barack Obama's administration to engage the junta appeared focused on pushing for free and fair elections next year, although analysts said the rapprochement was as much about geopolitics and the growing regional influence of China.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell led the U.S. delegation meeting the junta in its new capital, Naypyidaw, before traveling to Yangon for talks with detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly characterized the trip as "basically ... a fact-finding mission" aimed at advancing the newly agreed dialogue between the two countries.

"Today, they met with ministers of the Burmese government and with various individuals affiliated with the regime," he said. "Tomorrow they plan to meet with some representatives from the opposition, with the prime minister and also with Aung San Suu Kyi."

"They're basically in kind of an information gathering mode. They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue. But they were mainly in a listening mode today," Kelly said.

The United States said little before the two-day visit, seen as exploratory dialogue to gauge how sincere Myanmar's distrustful generals are about democratic reforms.

"The U.S. wants to suss out whether or not they have a genuine dialogue partner," said Sean Turnell, a Myanmar analyst at Australia's Macquarie University.