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The WFP director said he sought to make this point in a meeting Thursday, with Burma's prime minister.

In her first post- imprisonment speech last month, she said she's willing to work with Myanmar's leadership and fellow democracy advocates.

Twenty years of trying to persuade Burma's generals to reform has not secured any improvement.

However desirable such a policy may be, seeking to impose it in this way was to treat Mexico as if it were Myanmar.

Most of the boat people were Rohingyas, members of a Muslim minority, many of whom had already fled Myanmar once, for Bangladesh.

China has already converted its own 680km stretch into a six-lane highway and is helping to rebuild much of the road inside Burma.

Myanmar's leaders, no doubt, would like to see sanctions lifted rapidly.

The isolated Burmese government up to then had allowed in just a trickle of assistance from neighbors Thailand, Singapore, China and India.

Mr. Ban said he saw the statement as a breakthrough in building trust between the reclusive generals and the international community.