Aung San Suu Kyi leaves for US, S Korea

YANGON - Leader of Myanmar's National League for Democracy (NLD) and parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi left yangon for the United States and South Korea Thursday morning.

It is the second time for Suu Kyi to visit the US and the first time to South Korea after she became a parliamentarian.

Suu Kyi will be received by the Hawaii governor in Honolulu and meet Myanmar community there, NLD sources said.

She will attend the Rotary Peace Forum in the Hawaii capital, where she will pick up Hawaii Peace Award and proceed to South Korean capital of Seoul where she will have talks with President Lee Myung-bak and first woman president-elect of the country Park Geun-hye. ?

She will then attend the Special Olympic Games-2013 in Pyeongchang and deliver a speech at the Global Development Summit.

After that, she will visit Gwangju where she will collect the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights awarded in 2004 when she was under house arrest in Myanmar and will deliver also an acceptance speech in her honor organized by the Gwangju city government and the May 18 Memorial Foundation.

She will pay respects at the May 18 National Cemetery which commemorates the 1980 Gwangju uprising against Chun Doo-hwan.

As a follow-up, Suu Kyi will also give a lecture at Seoul National University and meet Myanmar community, the sources added.

Released from house arrest in November 2010, Suu Kyi resumed her political career becoming a parliamentarian by winning the April by-election in 2012 and also made her first trip abroad in 24 years covering Thailand, five European countries, the United States and India.