UN envoy hopes to meet Suu Kyi

Pinheiro, who is on a mission to investigate several alleged human rights abuses in the military-run state, also said his talks Tuesday with Myanmar's Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt were positive.

"It was a very good exchange... he exposed to me several aspects of the present (political) process," he told reporters late Tuesday after the talks which are likely to be the highest-level exchange of his visit.

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"I also had the opportunity to share several aspects of my report... and proposed ways to promote and implement basic human rights," he said, referring to his damning findings on rights abuses in Myanmar.

Pinheiro said Khin Nyunt, the powerful chief of military intelligence who announced a planned "roadmap" to democracy after being appointed premier in August, was "very attentive" and took notes during the meeting.

Asked whether he would be allowed to see Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held under house arrest, he said the authorities had been "very cooperative" and that he should have "no difficulties".

Pinheiro would be only the second outsider to visit the 58-year-old Nobel peace laureate since May 30 when she was arrested after her convoy was ambushed by a pro-junta gang in northern Myanmar.

UN envoy Razali Ismail saw her early last month but did not shed much light on the May incident which reportedly left dozens of people dead, and observers hope that during his six-day mission Pinheiro can clarify what happened.

The Brazilian academic said he expected to spend the whole day at Insein, the prison just north of Yangon accused by exile groups of gross rights violations and torture, and that he would have good access to prisoners.

"The authorities were very cooperative... I did not encounter any difficulty having access to the people I need to meet," he said.

For the first time in her political career which began when she returned to Yangon from London in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi was herself briefly held at Insein in June before being shifted into detention at a secret location.

Britain's junior foreign minister for Asia Mike O'Brien said at the time that he was "appalled" to learn she was confined to a "two-room hut" there without even a change of clothes since her arrest three weeks before.