Aung San Suu Kyi To Visit Britain In First Trip Abroad For 24 Years

Aung San Suu Kyi To Visit Britain In First Overseas Trip For 24 Years

Aung San Suu Kyi will leave Burma for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century to visit Norway and Britain, after David Cameron invited the opposition leader to London.

The newly-elected MP is planning to visit in June, but a spokesperson for her party said the exact timing - and which country she would visit first - was unclear.

"I don't know the exact date yet," National League for Democracy's party spokesperson Nyan Win told Reuters.

Cameron invited the Nobel Laurete to Burma when he visited the country on Friday.

Opposition leader Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 22 years under house arrest, had been unable to leave the country, and denied an opportunity to visit her dying husband in the UK in 1999, as she feared she would not be allowed back.

Suu Kyi, who has not left the country since 1988, was placed under house arrest in 1989 after the Burmese junta declared martial law. Despite a convincing win in the country's 1990 polls, she was disqualified by the junta and spent subsequent years in and out of house arrest.

She has not left the country since 1988.

Burma, which held its first national elections in 2010, has recently embarked on a series of reforms, with Cameron saying last week he would support suspending sanctions on the country last week.

The country's president Thein Sein unexpectedly embarked on a series of democratic reforms, including releasing political prisoners and allowing peaceful protest, prompting Aung San Suu Kyi's party to participate in elections following the changes.

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