Senior U N envoy to return to Myanmar - source

YANGON, Oct. 27 (Reuters) Senior United Nations official Ibrahim Gambari, the last outsider to meet detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, will return to the army-run country next month, a diplomatic source said today.

His November 9 to November 12 visit is expected to be similar to a trip in May during which he met junta supremo Than Shwe as well as Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for more than 10 of the last 17 years.

''His itinerary is expected to be the same as that of his first visit,'' a Yangon-based diplomat told Reuters.

A government official who asked not to be identified said he had also heard of the planned visit by the U N undersecretary-general for political affairs but declined to give details.

In May, Gambari became the first foreigner to see Suu Kyi in more than two years when he was allowed to hold an hour-long meeting with her at a Yangon guesthouse.

The contact, a week before Suu Kyi's then period of house arrest expired, led to optimism that the generals in charge of the former Burma might be about to release her.

However, in defiance of a direct appeal from U N Secretary-General Kofi Annan, they extended her detention by another year.

At the time, a government source suggested the junta had been in talks with Suu Kyi on conditions it wanted to attach to her release, but discussions between the two sides broke down.

Myanmar has been under military rule of one form or another since 1962. The current junta seized power in 1988 and suffered an election rout in 1990 at the hands of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), but refused to recognise the result.

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