YANGON, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Myanmar government on Saturday extended to another one year the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader of the country's main political party, according to well-informed sources.

    Aung San Suu Kyi, general-secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been put under detention and later house arrest since May 30, 2003 bloody incident, in which clashes occured between supporters of the government and those of the NLD.

    The government's decision to extend the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi came one week after Ibrahim Gambari, under secretary-general for Political Affairs of the United Nations, visited Myanmar on May 18-20 in a mission to assess the country's political situation concerning national reconciliation, democracy and human rights.

    During the trip, besides meeting with Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council Senior-General Than Shwe, Gambari was also allowed to meet with detained Aung San Suu Kyi.

    Aung San Suu Kyi has spent more than 10 of the past 17 years in some form of detention since July 1989 when she was first put under house arrest for nearly six years until July 1995 for allegedly endangering the state. The second time was from September 2000 to May 2002 for her defy of the government's travelrestriction by forcing her way to the second largest city of Mandalay.

    Over the period of Aung San Suu Kyi's detention, Razali Ismail, special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Paulo SergioPinheiro, UN Human Rights rapporteur, traveled to Myanmar for 12 and six times respectively to seek for her release. The last occasions for the two UN officials to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi were in March 2004 and November 2003 respectively. The two officials were later denied re-entry to visit Yangon again.

    Gambari said his last meetings with both the government leaders and the NLD's were to seek common base for the country's national reconciliation and democratization process. Enditem