Suu Kyi tells Myanmar migrants in Thailand to come home

By CS Thana

BANGKOK (AA) - Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has called on her countrymen living in Thailand to return home, on the second day of her visit to the neighboring country.

"We understand we have to create an environment where our people want to return," she told reporters Friday after a bilateral meeting with Thai Junta leader-cum-Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha.

Suu Kyi's NLD has been governing Myanmar since earlier this year after winning the Nov. 8 election -- Myanmar's first free vote for 25 years -- in a landslide.

The vote capped a transition from military dictatorship to the country’s first civilian-led administration in more than 50 years.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar currently reside in Thailand in displacement camps along its border.

Many are Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar that many human rights groups claim is state-sanctioned, while others are escaping armed ethnic conflict in its remoter areas.

Suu Kyi added that her government was working “to turn conflict into friendship, to turn conflict into mutual trust and understanding".

On Friday, Suu Kyi -- also Myanmar's foreign minister - signed several agreements with Chan-ocha aimed at easing restrictions on Myanmar migrant workers living in the Kingdom.

The agreement is designed to extend legal protection and ease travel restrictions on the four million-strong diaspora.

"I always feel like I am among friends in Thailand," she said. "Together with the Thai government we can work on these issues."

Suu Kyi is due to fly back to Yangon on Saturday.

It is her first overseas visit since the November election.