Clinton to meet Burmese leaders
Updated
United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton has landed in Burma in the first visit of its kind in five decades.
Ms Clinton will meet Burma's president Thein Sein and other government ministers in the administrative capital Napyidaw.
She will then fly to Rangoon where she will meet with non-government organisations and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ms Clinton is expected to raise the need to release political prisoners and end brutal ethnic conflicts.
It is a flying two-day visit, but it will boost Burma's credibility amid hopes that the former military run country is beginning to open up.
US president Barack Obama made the decision to send Ms Clinton on the visit after speaking personally with Ms Suu Kyi.
After years of isolation, the past few months have been marked by signs that Burma's military junta is loosening its iron grip on the population.
The country has been endorsed to take on the ASEAN chairmanship in 2014, and its government has stated that it plans to move what has been a system of brutal military rule to democracy.
It is just over one year since Ms Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, and her National League for Democracy recently announced that it would re-register as a political party.
Up to 50 by-elections are due to be held in Burma and Ms Suu Kyi is expected to be a candidate.
In another sign of the changing situation, news organisations, including the ABC, have been able to send journalists openly into the country to cover the visit with no obvious restrictions.
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