YANGON - U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari met detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday but had not held talks yet with the head of the junta on ending a bloody crackdown on protests against 45 years of military rule.
"He looks forward to meeting Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, before the conclusion of his mission," the United Nations said in a statement.
It gave no indication of when Gambari might meet Than Shwe, who operates out of Naypyidaw, the new capital carved out of the jungle 240 miles (385 km) north of Yangon, and whose government rarely shows signs of heeding pressure from outside.
Gambari met Suu Kyi for more than an hour at a Yangon government guest house near the lakeside villa where she is confined without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.
They met after Gambari flew back from Naypyidaw where he met acting Prime Minister Thein Sein, Culture Minister Khin Aung Nyint and Information Minister Kyaw Hsan -- all generals -- shortly after his arrival on Saturday, the diplomats said.
There was no immediate word on whether he has made any progress in ending the crackdown on the biggest anti-junta protests in nearly 20 years by arresting hundreds of monks, barricading off central Yangon and putting troops on the streets.
"Everybody is putting their hopes on Ibrahim Gambari, that he will solve the problem," one retired sailor in Yangon said. "We hope that he will put the generals under pressure, along with other political leaders."
There were no visible crowds on Sunday in central Yangon, where security forces have squeezed the life out of the protests by barricading off the two major pagodas at their heart and keeping away the revered Buddhist monks who led them.
But troops and police were searching bags and people for cameras and the Internet, through which people have fed the world images of the protests and the crackdown, remained off line.
Soldiers were posted on nearly every street corner of the city of five million people and groups could not coalesce without attracting attention, witnesses said.
HUNDREDS ARRESTED
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said at least 700 monks and 500 other people had been rounded up across the country.
The protests began with small marches against shock fuel price rises in mid-August, but intensified when soldiers firing over the heads of protesting monks caused the monasteries to mobilise.
In the last few days troops in Yangon were confining monks to their monasteries, people in the neighbourhoods said.
