TOKYO: Thein Sein this week becomes the first Myanmar head of state in 28 years to visit Japan as the former dictatorship is gradually welcomed back into the global community, Tokyo said Wednesday.
The president will meet Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for talks and will take part in a six-nation Asian summit, a foreign ministry official said.
Thein Sein "will visit Japan from April 20 to 24 and a summit meeting with Prime Minister Noda will take place on April 21," the Japanese official in charge of Myanmar issues told AFP.
Thein Sein will also attend a Japan-Mekong summit on Saturday in which the leaders of five Mekong delta nations Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will participate, the official said.
A Myanmar official confirmed to AFP that the president would be making the trip, on which he is expected to be accompanied by other ministers.
Thein Sein visited Japan as prime minister in 2009 for a Japan-Mekong summit.
Myanmar, long a global outcast, has come in from the cold since polls last year that saw the election of a nominally civilian government.
Earlier this month, democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to parliament and international sanctions on the regime are increasingly being relaxed.
Unlike major Western nations, Japan maintained trade ties and dialogue with Myanmar during its years of isolation, warning that a hard line on the then-ruling junta could push it closer to neighbouring China, its main political supporter and commercial partner.
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