London committed to Myanmar

A meeting between Myanmar's ambassador to London and a British foreign minister shows the British government is serious about engagement, an official said. British Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne met Ambassador U Kyaw Myo Htut for the first time in London. "My meeting with Mr. U Kyaw Myo Htut is a mark of the U.K.'s willingness to engage with Myanmar's government in light of the reforms that they have recently undertaken," Browne said. "I encouraged the ambassador and his government to maintain the momentum for change." Myanmar's government has embraced political reform since having the first general election in years in 2010. Thousands of political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, have been released from custody. Suu Kyi this week entered a race by by-elections for seats in Myanmar's Parliament. Her National League for Democracy Party won elections in the 1990s though the military junta refused to recognize the results. "I reiterated that the U.K. government stood ready to respond to future positive actions, and that the world would be watching the upcoming by-elections, expecting them to be free and fair," Browne said. U.N. human rights officials said Myanmar still has more work to do to meet international expectations.