Myanmar’s military has announced that the country representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was permitted to meet with ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday.
According to a junta statement, Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC’s resident representative in Myanmar, met with Suu Kyi on Monday morning. No further details about the meeting or its outcome were disclosed.
The announcement comes weeks after Myanmar’s military-appointed foreign minister stated during a meeting in Bangkok on July 12 that Suu Kyi was in good health and was being cared for “like a relative.” Two months earlier, the military released what it claimed was a recent photograph of the detained Nobel laureate.
Since seizing power in the February 2021 coup, the military has largely denied requests from the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) and other international actors to meet Suu Kyi. The only previously known high-level foreign meeting took place in July 2023, when she met Thailand’s then foreign minister.
Myanmar junta spokesperson Khaing Khaing Soe confirmed the meeting to Myanmar Now, saying Suu Kyi “is in good health” and that the meeting took place on Monday morning with the ICRC’s resident representative. She said the military would release further details later.
Asked why the meeting was allowed, Khaing Khaing Soe said ASEAN had also requested access to Suu Kyi, adding that this was “the first time” the military had permitted the ICRC to meet her.
She declined to provide additional information about the discussion, saying only that Suu Kyi was “well and healthy.”
The meeting comes amid sustained pressure from several ASEAN member states for access to Suu Kyi, who has been held incommunicado for much of her detention. It also follows an international campaign led by her son, Kim Aris, from London, calling on Myanmar’s military authorities to provide proof that his mother, 81, is alive and to allow independent access to her.
Responding to reports of the meeting, Aris welcomed the development but stressed that it should be regarded only as a first step.
“I have not yet received independent confirmation of my mother’s condition or wellbeing. One reported meeting cannot answer the questions my family has lived with for more than five years,” Aris said.
He also expressed hope that the reported visit would lead to further humanitarian progress, including direct family contact, credible and independently verified information about Suu Kyi’s wellbeing, and her immediate and unconditional release alongside all political prisoners.
