Australia and Burma open defence talks

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Australia and Burma open defence talks

Australia and Burma open defence talks | World news | guardian.co.uk

Australia and Burma open defence talks
Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, announces 'first steps' in military relationship as President Thein Sein visits
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Reuters in Canberra
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 March 2013 05.23 GMT
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Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, with President Thein Sein of Burma. Photograph: Alan Porritt/Getty
Australia is to ease restrictions on military engagement with Burma following democratic reforms carried out since the country's ruling generals relinquished their half-century grip on power in 2011.

The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, said restrictions would be lifted on military humanitarian aid and peacekeeping but an arms sales embargo would stay in place

Gillard met in Canberra with Burma's president, Thein Sein, on Monday. Thein Sein is the first leader of Burma to visit the Australian capital since 1974.

"What we've done today is taken a first step on defence relations between our two countries. It is not fully normalising defence relationships," Gillard said.

Myanmar's military junta let in a quasi-civilian government in 2011, triggering political and economic reforms. Western governments have cautiously dropped or eased sanctions against the country.

Burma still has a constitution drafted by the generals and reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military personnel, while barring the Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency.

The United Nations's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar last week warned that progress had been erratic in Myanmar, with around 250 political prisoners still behind bars and 120,000 people internally displaced.

Gillard said Australia, a rotating UN security council member and close ally of the US, would soon post a defence attaché to its embassy in Myanmar and would provide additional aid worth A$20m (£13.7m) to train the government in human rights.

Thein Sein, a former junta general, said his government was looking to Australia to provide investment and expertise in Burma's fledgling resource sector. Burma is Asia's poorest country "We have to make sure that the extraction and exploitation of these resources is done properly," Thein Sein said.

Gillard's government in 2012 lifted targeted travel and financial sanctions on Burma excluding military assistance. Australian aid to Burma is set to double to $100m a year by 2015.