The European Union Monday warned that Myanmar's next elections scheduled for 2010 "will have no credibility" unless the repressive regime releases Nobel peace laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, media reports said.
A joint statement issued by 27 foreign ministers following a meeting in Brussels deplored "the lack of progress made this year towards a genuine transition to democracy in Myanmar since the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations by the military authorities."
They stressed that the Myanmar elections will have "no credibility" unless the authorities "unconditionally release all political prisoners, in particular Suu Kyi, and initiate a political process with United Nations support" with the opposition and ethnic groups.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but Myanmar's junta never allowed them to form a government. She has spent most of the intervening years under house arrest in the country, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.
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