Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has confirmed she will stand in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Suu Kyi said that her party, National League for Democracy (NLD), would rejoin the political process and contest the currently unscheduled elections.
NLD boycotted a previous set of elections in November 2010 because Suu Kyi, as a former political prisoner, was banned from running. Those elections were the first to be held in the country, formerly known as Burma, in 20 years.
The NLD won the 1990 elections but was not allowed to take power. Suu Kyi was subsequently kept under house arrest for more than 15 years in several spells until her release in 2010.
Since the 2010 elections the regulation banning the participation of political prisoners has been dropped by a new military-led civilian government.
Suu Kyi's party now plans to run for all of the 48 vacant parliamentary seats.
"We unanimously decide that the NLD will register according to party registration laws, and we will take part in the coming by-elections," a party statement said after a meeting of more than 100 party leaders.
However Suu Kyi has also expressed concerns that not all political prisoners have been released, and cautioned supporters that there was still work to do in order to open up the country's politics.
Meanwhile the United States announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Myanmar in December, a reflection of what President Barack Obama has called "flickers of progress".
Clinton's visit is intended to "explore whether the United States can empower a positive transition in Burma", Obama has said.
British International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell spoke yesterday of the "immense honour" of meeting Suu Kyi.
Mitchell held talks with her a year after she was released from house arrest. The pair visited a school in the Burmese capital Rangoon and witnessed work funded by British aid money.
Suu Kyi "represented the hopes and dreams of Burma's people", Mitchell said.