DPA /Yangon
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday departed for Tokyo for her first visit to Japan in 27 years.
“I think we can anticipate more good relations with Japan,” Suu Kyi, 67, said at Yangon Airport.
During her six-day visit she was scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida unless the North Korean crisis prompts them to cancel the engagements, said Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
Suu Kyi would also meet Myanmar nationals living in Japan and students at Kyoto University, where she spent nearly nine months as a researcher in 1985 and 1986, Nyan Win said.
The Nobel laureate and former political prisoner spent 15 years under house arrest when Myanmar was still under military rule before being freed in 2010 and becoming a member of parliament last year.
Japan, unlike the West, maintained trade and aid ties with Myanmar while it was ruled by a junta from 1988 to 2010. It is still the largest donor nation to Myanmar.
Suu Kyi’s Japan trip is her sixth foreign excursion since she became a member of parliament in May. She has also visited Thailand, Europe, the US, India and South Korea.