CANBERRA (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama said on Thursday Myanmar had opened a dialogue on reform but needed to do more to improve human rights, in his first remarks about the authoritarian regime after the Southeast Asian nation released political prisoners.
A senior Myanmar Home Ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday that the new civilian government was ready to release more political prisoners, a further sign that genuine reform could be underway after five decades of harsh military rule.
"Some political prisoners have been released. The government has begun a dialogue. Still, violations of human rights persist," Obama said in a speech to the Australian parliament.
"So we will continue to speak clearly about the steps that must be taken for the government of Burma to have a better relationship with the United States."
The United States, Europe and Australia have said that freeing political prisoners is a precondition to lifting sanctions that have crippled Myanmar's economy and driven it closer to China.
Obama is in Australia ahead of visiting the Indonesian island of Bali for the East Asia Summit, and to signal a closer U.S. engagement with the Pacific.
Myanmar President Thein Sein, seen as having a reformist agenda, is already in Bali for a summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The senior Myanmar official said the authorities were preparing "very soon" to release political prisoners for the second time under an amnesty in just over a month.
Another amnesty would boost Thein Sein's image and strengthen his case for Myanmar taking the rotating ASEAN presidency in 2014, two years ahead of schedule -- a bid widely seen as an attempt to legitimize the new political system.
Myanmar's National League for Democracy, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is expected to decide on Friday whether to re-register as a political party to contest imminent by-elections.
HUMAN RIGHTS
In his speech, Obama said the U.S. would continue to champion human rights.
"Every nation will chart its own course. Yet it is also true that certain rights are universal, among them freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the freedom of citizens to choose their own leaders," he said.
"These are not American rights, or Australian rights, or Western rights. They are human rights. They stir in every soul, as we've seen in democracy's success in Asia."
The United States has had strained relations with Myanmar since the military junta, which took power in a 1962 coup, killed thousands in a crackdown in 1988.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Friday that Myanmar appeared to be making some "real changes" to its political system, but the United States wants to see more reform before embracing the country formerly known as Burma.
Clinton noted reports of "substantive dialogue" between the government and Suu Kyi and changes in the country's laws on labor and political party registration.
(Reporting by Michael Perry; Additional reporting by James Grubel and Caren Bohan; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Jonathan Thatcher)
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