Who’s meeting with Burma’s foreign minister?

The United States will begin to engage more with the brutal Burmese military junta, while still maintaining a sanctions regime, Secretary of State Hillary  Clinton said Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters following a multilateral meeting on Burma in New York led by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Clinton said that the Obama administration’s comprehensive Burma policy review was just about complete and would call for a mixture of carrots and sticks meant to influence the behavior of the government led by senior Gen. Than Shwe.

"The basic objectives are not changed," said Clinton, "We want credible, democratic reform; a government that respond to the needs of the Burmese people; immediate, unconditional release of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi; serious dialogue with the opposition and minority ethnic groups. We believe that sanctions remain important as part of our policy, but by themselves, they have not produced the results that had been hoped for on behalf of the people of Burma."

She continued:

"Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice, in our opinion. So going forward, we will be employing both of those tools, pursuing our same goals. And to help achieve democratic reform, we will be engaging directly with Burmese authorities. This is a policy that has broad consensus across our government, and there will be more to report as we go forward."

That commitment to engagement is a huge shift for U.S. Burma policy and is likely to invoke a negative reaction from some human rights and democracy advocates as well as conservative Republicans who advocate a harder line.

One political leader who will welcome the shift is Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who has been pushing for more engagement with Burma and met with Burmese officials as well as with Suu Kyi during his August Southeast Asia tour.

Webb’s diplomatic activism regarding Burma has made him a target for some neoconservatives, the latest criticism being the accusation that he helped to secure a visa for the Burmese Foreign Minister Maj. Gen. Nyan Win to visit Washington last weekend.

But Webb’s office denies he had any role helping the Burmese official make the trip.

"Senator Webb met with the foreign minister while he was in town to discuss the road forward for improved U.S.-Burma relations. Saying that he helped facilitate his trip is a fabrication," said Webb’s spokesman Jessica Smith.

A U.S. State Department official told The Cable that as part of the foreign minister’s trip to New York for the U.N. General Assembly opening, he did request a short side trip to Washington for the purpose of visiting the Burmese Embassy and meeting with embassy staff.

The State Department did approve the request and the Burmese leader did not meet with any administration representatives in Washington, the official said.

Kyaw Win, the Burmese Embassy’s deputy chief of mission, told The Cable that Webb’s Washington meeting with the foreign minister was a brief follow-up to their meeting during Webb’s trip. The main point of the foreign minister’s D.C. stopover was to inspect the embassy facilities, which are old and in need of repair, Win said.

Apparently, Suu Kyi herself has expressed that she welcomes engagement with the junta but insists that "engagement must be with both sides," her lawyer Nyan Win told AFP.

UPDATE: Webb has announced the witness list for his hearing on Burma, which will now be on Sept. 30 (so I guess the administration review will be released before then?). The witnesses are Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell, Burmese historian Thant Myint-U, who wrote a supportive op-ed in the Washington Post following Webb’s trip, and Georgetown University scholar David Steinberg, who also leans towards Webb’s approach on Burmese engagement.