Japan to offer aid to improve living standards of Myanmar people

NARITA (Kyodo) - A senior Japanese official who held talks Wednesday with Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday upon her return home that Tokyo plans to offer aid to the Southeast Asian country to help improve living standards.
Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Makiko Kikuta also told Kyodo News that she said to Suu Kyi that Japan will support Myanmar's democratization and national reconciliation after the nation's government shifted to civilian rule in March following a general election last November after decades of military control.
Kikuta's meeting in Yangon with Suu Kyi represented the first official encounter between a senior Japanese government official and the country's pro-democracy icon since August 2002, when then Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi met with the Nobel Peace laureate.
Later in the day, Japanese officials who accompanied Kikuta on her Myanmar trip said Tokyo will boost assistance in areas such as health and educational services to help the poor.
The Myanmar government has told Kikuta that it hopes to receive Japanese aid to promote efforts to eradicate poverty in farming villages, the officials said.
A civilian government led by former senior members of the junta that ruled the country for the past 22 years assumed power in Myanmar at the end of March.
Suu Kyi was released from seven-and-a-half years in detention last November shortly after the general election.