YANGON, MYANMAR — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday shared dinner with Myanmar’s most famous former political prisoner and challenged the nation’s leaders to expand recent reforms, end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea.
“We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters during the first visit to this long-isolated nation by the top U.S. diplomat in more than 50 years. “One political prisoner is one too many in our view.”
Mrs. Clinton made her comments before her private dinner with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released last year after two decades of periodic imprisonment and has said she will run in upcoming elections.
Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Suu Kyi were to meet more formally on Friday.
Meeting earlier Thursday with President Thein Sein and other senior government officials in the capital of Naypyidaw, Mrs. Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps the country has already taken but made clear that more must be done. She said the U.S. is not ready to lift sanctions on the country.
Mrs. Clinton hand-delivered letters from President Obama to Thein Sein and Mrs. Suu Kyi in which Mr. Obama expressed hope that relations could further improve.
“I came to assess whether the time is right for a new chapter in our shared history,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She added that the U.S. is ready to further improve relations with the civilian government in the Southeast Asian nation - also known as Burma - but only if it stays on the path of democratization.
In a series of modest first steps, she announced that Washington would allow Myanmar’s participation in a U.S.-backed grouping of Mekong River countries; no longer block enhanced cooperation between the country and the International Monetary Fund; and support intensified U.N. health, microfinance and counternarcotics programs.
A senior U.S. official said Thein Sein had outlined his government’s plans for reform in a 45-minute presentation in which he acknowledged that Myanmar lacks a recent tradition of democracy and openness. He asked for U.S. help in making the transition from military to full civilian rule, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private diplomatic exchange.
Mrs. Clinton replied that she is visiting because the U.S. is “encouraged by the steps that you and your government have taken to provide for your people.”
Yet, she also made clear that those steps must be consolidated and enlarged if the U.S. is to consider easing near-blanket economic sanctions that block almost all American commercial transactions with Myanmar.
“While measures already taken may be unprecedented and certainly welcome, they are just a beginning,” she told reporters.
“We’re not at the point yet where we can consider lifting sanctions that we have in place because of our ongoing concerns about policies that have to be reversed,” Mrs. Clinton said. “But any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and will be matched.”
She called for the release of political prisoners and an end to brutal ethnic violence that has ravaged the nation for decades.
Mrs. Clinton also warned the country’s leadership to break suspected illicit military, nuclear and ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea that may violate U.N. sanctions.
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