WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will become the first US president to visit the once pariah nation of Myanmar, drawing attention to the country's shift to democracy and highlighting what his administration regards as a marquee foreign policy achievement. Obama will also travel to Cambodia, a first for a US president as well, and to Thailand during the Nov. 17-20 trip. In Cambodia, the president will attend the East Asia summit in Phnom Penh and meet with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The symbolic highlight of the trip, no doubt, is Obama's stop in Myanmar, also known as Burma, a country emerging from five decades of ruinous military rule. While there, Obama will meet with President Thein Sein and also with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the White House said. While the trip places new focus on Obama's foreign policy and American attention to the Asia and Pacific region, it also comes as Obama, fresh from reelection, begins sensitive negotiations with congressional leaders about how to avoid looming tax increases and steep cuts in defense and domestic spending. Obama ended the longstanding US isolation of Myanmar's generals, which has played a part in coaxing them into political reforms that have unfolded with surprising speed in the past year. The US has appointed a full ambassador and suspended sanctions to reward Myanmar for political prisoner releases and Suu Kyi's election to parliament. In a statement, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama intended to “speak to civil society to encourage Burma's ongoing democratic transition.” A procession of senior diplomats and world leaders have traveled to the country, stopping both in the remote, opulent capital city Naypyitaw, built by the former ruling junta, and at Suu Kyi's dilapidated lakeside villa in the main city Yangon, where she spent 15 years under house arrest. Earlier this year, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first secretary of state in five decades to visit Myanmar. The State Department announced Friday that Clinton would join Obama in Bangkok and travel with him to Myanmar and Cambodia. Before that, she and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta meet with Australian officials in Perth and she will hold meetings in Singapore. The East Asia Summit in Cambodia will also provide Obama with opportunities for possible sideline discussions with a number of fellow heads of state, including leaders such as outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Also expected to attend are Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. “The Myanmar trip is potentially historic, and for that reason has both tremendous opportunity and risk associated with,” said Matthew Goodman, a former Obama international economics adviser. — AP
