Aung San Suu Kyi to leave Burma for first time in decades

Nobel laureate and newly elected MP accepts invitations to visit Norway and UK in first overseas trip in 24 years

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Rangoon, Wednesday 18 April 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi was invited to visit Britain when she met David Cameron
in Rangoon last Friday. Photograph: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA

Aung San Suu Kyi is to travel outside Burma for the first time in 24 years after accepting invitations to visit Norway and Britain in June, her party has said.

Her travel plans follow months of change in Burma, including 1 April's historic byelections that saw her elected to parliament after nearly five decades of military rule.

The Nobel peace prize laureate's travel plans include a visit Oxford, where she attended university in the 1970s, said a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

"But I don't know the exact date yet," said Nyan Win, adding the he did not know which country she would visit first. She has previously indicated it would be Norway.

Aung San Suu Kyi, 66, was first detained in 1989 and spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention until her release from house arrest in November 2010. She refused to leave Burma during the brief periods when she was not held by authorities, for fear of not being allowed to return.

She won one of her party's 43 seats in this month's byelections following a series of reforms under President Thein Sein, a former general, including the release of political prisoners and more media freedom.

Aung San Suu Kyi was invited to visit Britain when she met David Cameron in Rangoon last Friday. At the time, she said the fact that she would consider the offer, rather than reject it outright, showed great progress had been achieved in Burma.

"Two years ago I would have said thank you for the invitation, but sorry," she added.