At a press conference yesterday US Senator Jim Webb said he did not “want to take the risk of misrepresenting her views” but suggested that she was “not opposed to lifting some sanctions.”

The senator has always been critical of US and European economic and trade sanctions against Myanmar’s dictatorship.

 “Daw Suu told me that when she met with Senator Webb on Saturday she reiterated the need for the Burmese regime to first interact ‘inside the country.” Only when that happens “will Burma benefit from relations with the international community,” Mr Win said in an interview with The Irrawaddy, a dissident newsmagazine.

When the Nobel Prize laureate met Nyan Win yesterday afternoon she said that “she had not discussed the issue [of sanctions] with anyone recently”.

Suu Kyi’s stance on sanctions has not changed since she issued a statement in 2007.

At the time Ms “Suu Kyi said that as she was not the one who imposed sanctions against the Burmese regime, she is not in a position to lift those sanctions,” Win said.