Obama urges Myanmar to hold free and fair polls

YANGON, Nov 14 (agencies): US President Barack Obama urged Myanmar Friday to hold "free, fair and inclusive" elections as he threw his weight behind a bid by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to change a constitution that bars her from the presidency.

Obama held talks with fellow Nobel laureate Suu Kyi at her lakeside villa in Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon, after arriving from the capital Naypyidaw where he discussed the nation's troubled reform process with President Thein Sein.

Speaking at a joint press conference he warned Myanmar's reforms since shedding outright military rule in 2011 were by "no means complete or irreversible" and called for "free, fair and inclusive" elections in the nation, where Suu Kyi and her party are set to contest crucial polls next year.

Suu Kyi, who has publicly stated her desire to be president, is barred from the top office by a constitutional clause ruling out anyone with foreign spouse or children from the presidency.

Her late husband and two sons are British and the democracy champion is seeking an amendment.

Using strong language, Obama took up the issue telling reporters that "the amendment process needs to reflect inclusion rather than exclusion."

"I don't understand the provision that would bar somebody from running for president because of who his (someone's) children are."

Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party is widely expected to sweep polls in late 2015, branded the contentious clause as "unfair, unjust and undemocratic" adding "it is not right to discriminate against one particular citizen".

The issue is currently being debated in parliament, where 25 percent of the seats are ring-fenced for the military.

"The majority of our people understand that this constitution cannot stand as it is," if democracy is to be achieved, the democracy figurehead added.

The pair spoke in the garden of Suu Kyi's villa in a reprise of their landmark meeting in 2012, which saw the US leader throw his political might behind Myanmar's transition from junta rule.

After talks with his counterpart Thein Sein late Thursday Obama expressed cautious optimism for the once-cloistered nation that balanced out earlier warnings on the risks of "backsliding" on the transition.

"We recognise change is hard and you do not always move in a straight line but I'm optimistic," Obama said.

During his two-night trip to Myanmar the US leader has also raised alarm over the direction of reforms, however, citing the cramping of freedom of expression, ongoing conflicts and the treatment of Myanmar's minority groups-especially the Muslim Rohingya.

Obama was whisked from Yangon airport to tour the British colonial-era secretariat building in downtown Yangon where Suu Kyi's father, independence hero General Aung San, was gunned down by political rivals in 1947.

Their talks at Suu Kyi's lakeside family home come almost four years to the day after she was released from years of house arrest.

Her street, which also houses the US Embassy, was sealed off Friday with dozens of police at each end as well as a scrum of reporters and cameramen and some NLD members.

He then moved to university compound for a town hall style question-and-answer session where the serious political discussion was punctuated by peels of laughter as a relaxed Obama took off his jacket and bantered with the mainly young audience.

Several among the crowd briefly held up banners reading "reform is fake", prompting a riposte from the US leader who said "Oh we have some signs... that's why we are here, to talk."

On his last visit, Obama received a fanfare welcome from thrilled locals a year after Thein Sein began to open up the country.

Meanwhile: Myanmar's minority Rohingya Muslims are among the most persecuted people on earth, and advocates of their cause were hoping President Barack Obama would not only press the issue during his visit this week - they were hoping he would simply say their name.

 "Discrimination against the Rohingya or any other religious minority does not express the kind of country that Burma over the long term wants to be," Obama said, in response to a reporter's question about the status of reforms in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Another report adds: President Barack Obama pressed for greater press freedoms in Myanmar and China on Friday but said he couldn't discuss the status of a New York Times reporter whom U.S. prosecutors want to testify in a leak investigation.

 Obama says he has been "pretty blunt and pretty frank" with leaders in China and Myanmar that societies that repress journalists ultimately oppress their people as well. Asked about the case of journalist James Risen in the U.S., Obama reiterated remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder that no journalists will go to jail for doing their job.