Burma's Suu Kyi meets with her party

Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has met with top members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party for the first in more than three years.

At the two-hour meeting, Ms Suu Kyi said the generals were "serious and really willing to work for national reconciliation" after September's bloody crackdown on democracy protests, NLD spokesman Nyan Win said.

"She is optimistic," he said at NLD headquarters in Rangoon, citing unspecified "practical measures" as reasons to think the military may be willing to consider relaxing its total grip on power that it has held for 45 years.

However, Nyan Win said the 62-year-old had also asked for two NLD liaison officers to be appointed, suggesting there was little prospect of the Nobel laureate being released any time soon.

Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, also had a second meeting on Friday with General Aung Kyi.

He was appointed as a go-between following world outrage at September's crackdown, in which at least ten people were killed.

In a statement released on her behalf by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari after his second visit in a month, Ms Suu Kyi described her initial contact with Gen Aung Kyi as constructive and said she was ready to work with the military to establish proper negotiations.

In her first public comments since her latest period of detention began in May 2003, she said: "In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to co-operate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success."

A statement from Burma's military leaders, saying it would "make efforts steadfastly for national reconciliation with the correct cooperation of the UN Secretary General", also gave cause for hope, despite their long list of broken promises.

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