Thai PM:Suu Kyi's recent visit to Thailand is unlikely to affect Thai-Myanmar relations

BANGKOK, June 5 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra says that a recent visit to Thailand by Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is believed not to affect bilateral relations between Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar. Yingluck affirmed Tuesday her administration's policy on promoting and maintaining sound relations with other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Myanmar. Yingluck said that the recent visit to Thailand by Suu Kyi, Myanmar's pro-democracy icon and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), her first overseas trip in more than two decades, was at the invitation of the organizer of the 21st World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia, held in Bangkok from May 30-June 1, and that visits to other areas during her stay in Thailand, including refugee camps for ethnic Myanmar, were planned by Suu Kyi herself with the Thai government only providing her with appropriate security measures. The Thai prime minister's remarks were in response to reports that Myanmar President Thein Sein's postponement of his visit to Thailand until "an appropriate time" was due to his dissatisfaction with Suu Kyi's movements in Thailand. The Thai premier declined to give any comment over the reports, telling journalists that the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been assigned to clarity the issue with the Myanmar government. Thein Sein first planned to visit Thailand to attend the WEF on East Asia 2012, but he then postponed the trip to June 4-5. The Myanmar President, again, abruptly postponed his rescheduled trip to Thailand last weekend. (TNA)