Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hold a bilateral meeting in Singapore, November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
November 14, 2018
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday that the violence and persecution by her country’s military and vigilantes that sent more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh was inexcusable.
Pence told Suu Kyi in a brief meeting with the media before they went into private talks on the sidelines of a Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore that the United States was anxious to hear of progress in holding people accountable for the Rohingya crisis.
Suu Kyi responded that people have different views.
Pence also said that Washington wanted to see a free and democratic press in Myanmar, and the jailing of two journalists last year was “deeply troubling” for millions of Americans.
He did not mention by name Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two Reuters journalists who were arrested in Yangon in December 2017. They were found guilty in September of breaching the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison.
(Reporting by John Geddie; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
