ASEAN envoy cuts short visit to Myanmar

Malaysian foreign minister Syed Albar will leave Myanmar ending his long-delayed visit to the military-run country one day early.

The Malaysian foreign minister, acting as an ASEAN envoy, has cut short a trip to Myanmar aimed at pressing the junta over human rights reforms, security sources and diplomats said on Friday.

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Syed Hamid Albar, will leave Myanmar Friday night, ending his long-delayed visit to the military-run country one day early.

"He's going home tonight. As far as we know he met the foreign minister and prime minister. He's not going to meet Suu Kyi," one Yangon-based diplomat said, referring to a visit with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A security source also told the agency Syed Hamid would leave Myanmar Friday. Myanmar, which joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1997, agreed at last year's summit to invite Syed Hamid in January.

But the visit apparently stalled over the envoy's insistence on meeting the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 16 years in jail or under house arrest.

"If this is confirmed, (Syed Hamid) is another one who would have been disappointed," another diplomat told the agency.