President Barack Obama said Wednesday the U.S. will lift sanctions on Myanmar after a visit from the South Asian nation’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
This is not the first time the leader of Myanmar has visited the United States, but it marked her first official one. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and her party won a sweeping electoral victory last year, prompting a shift to democracy for the nation.
The U.S. will terminate the national emergency with respect to Myanmar and will restore Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade benefits to the nation, the White House said in a statement. “It is the right thing to do in order to ensure that the people of Burma see rewards from a new way of doing business and a new government,” Obama said.
Myanmar was removed from the GSP in 1989 when the ruling military junta stopped pro-democracy uprisings in the nation. Myanmar will return to the program on Nov. 13, officials said.
“We will continue with our efforts to amend our constitution, to make our country a truly democratic union that our founding fathers dreamt of,” Suu Kyi said. “And we look forward to the day when we can say that we, too, are in a position to help those less fortunate than we are in this world.”
During her visit, Suu Kyi could not ignore the plight of the Rakhine State – a matter over which she has received criticism. Over 125,000 Rohingya still live in temporary camps in the state. Under the nation’s citizenship law, the Rohingya are not included in the country’s 135 official ethnic groups. For this reason, they are seen as illegal immigrants and disliked by many in Myanmar.
“We want to make sure that everybody who is entitled to citizenship is accorded citizenship as quickly and as fairly as possible,” Suu Kyi said, and agreed to cooperate on efforts to improve human rights, education, health and economics, including efforts to counter human trafficking and corruption and increased funds for food and employment opportunities.
“We are hopeful about building on the friendship and partnership that we’ve already established, not just with the new government but, more importantly, with the Burmese people,” Obama said.
