Aung San Suu Kyi to meet president for first time: Official

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is set to meet the country's new president for the first time today, an official said, in the latest sign the regime is reaching out to its opponents.

The Nobel laureate, who was freed from seven straight years of detention in November, was invited by the authorities to visit the capital Naypyidaw to join President Thein Sein at an economic development workshop.

"They will meet today," the government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In March the junta handed power to a new nominally civilian government led by former general Thein Sein after nearly half a century of military rule.

Sources in the dissident's National League for Democracy Party (NLD) confirmed that Suu Kyi had left her home in Myanmar's former capital of Yangon by car on her way to the capital on a journey arranged by the authorities.

The 66-year-old, who has spent much of the last two decades in detention, was released from house arrest shortly after a November election that was won by the military's political proxies and marred by complaints of cheating.

The NLD, which won a 1990 vote but was never allowed to take power by the junta, boycotted last year's poll because of rules seemed designed to exclude Suu Kyi, and was stripped of its status as a political party as a result.

But more recently there have been signs that the new government is softening its stance towards its critics, with Suu Kyi holding a second round of talks with labour minister Aung Kyi on Friday of last week.