Collected Department Releases: Remarks With Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin Before Their Meeting

Remarks With Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin Before Their Meeting

Remarks

John Kerry
Secretary of State

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

September 30, 2014

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SECRETARY KERRY: It’s my pleasure to welcome the Foreign Minister of Myanmar this afternoon, Mr. Wunna Maung Lwin. And first of all, I want to thank him for his leadership because Myanmar has been chairing the ASEAN ministers, and we had a very constructive meeting in New York just a couple of days ago in which we went through a wide range of issues.

But of course, bilaterally between the United States and Myanmar there are key issues that we are working on together. President Obama will be traveling to Myanmar in a month – a little more than a month. We look forward to the East Asia Summit. It will be hosted in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar. And there, we will talk about the issues of the region, but also we will focus on the issues that Myanmar and the United States have been working on with respect to the elections, election reform process, humanitarian assistance to the people of Rakhine State who need to receive help, and some of the commitments that were made in the last meetings that the United States had with Myanmar.

So we’re very hopeful. We look forward to a really constructive meeting, and I look forward today to helping to lay the groundwork for that meeting of President Obama and President Sein, and we really look forward to a constructive next six weeks. Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER LWIN: Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Kerry, for the privilege to present to the State Department on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly while I was in United States. So as Secretary Kerry has mentioned that we have a very fruitful discussion in the context of ASEAN, and this year also within two months we are convening. This is the third time both of us are meeting. So I think in today’s meeting also we will be discussing about the progress of bilateral relations between Burma and the United States. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, sir. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much.

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Source: Dept. Of State – Releases

    

Collected Department Releases: Remarks With Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin Before Their Meeting