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TOKYO: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is likely to visit Japan later this month, a foreign ministry official in Tokyo has said, while a report said he would also travel to Myanmar.
"We are coordinating with the UN side about Secretary General Ban's visit to Japan at the end of June, aimed at strengthening cooperation between Japan and the United Nations," a foreign ministry official told AFP.
Kyodo News reported that Ban is expected to meet Prime Minister Taro Aso and other Japanese leaders during his stay in Tokyo to discuss a range of issues including North Korea, climate change and UN reform.
Ban could then continue onto Myanmar in early July, the report said, citing unnamed UN diplomatic sources. UN officials in Japan could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another Japanese diplomat, in charge of Myanmar affairs, said he was not aware that Ban was planning to visit Myanmar.
"As Secretary General Ban has shown a strong interest in the Myanmar situation, it's natural that he may hope to visit the country on the occasion of visiting Japan," he said.
The international community have pressured Myanmar's junta to free the nation's democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held on charges of violating her house arrest after an American man swam to her lakeside house.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention since the military government refused to recognise the landslide victory of her National League for Democracy in 1990 elections.
- AFP/yb
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