Obama praises Myanmar's reforms on landmark visit

US President Barack Obama urged Myanmar yesterday to hasten its "remarkable" reforms on a historic visit during which he was feted by huge crowds and met Aung San Suu Kyi at the home where she was locked up.

The trip, the first to Myanmar by a serving US president, came as the regime freed dozens more political prisoners to burnish its reform credentials and after the US joined other Western powers in relaxing its sanctions.

After a red-carpet welcome for Air Force One, Obama met Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein and called on the former general to speed up the country's march out of decades of iron-fisted military rule.

"Over the last year and a half, a dramatic transition has begun, as a dictatorship of five decades has loosened its grip," Obama said in a major address at Yangon University before hundreds of students, officials and former generals. "This remarkable journey has just begun, and has much further to go," he said. "The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished. They must be strengthened."

Over the past few decades, "our two countries became strangers", said Obama, who is on his first foreign trip since winning re-election this month. "But today, I can tell you that we always remained hopeful about the people of this country. About you. You gave us hope. And we bore witness to your courage."

Thein Sein said the two sides would move forward, "based on mutual trust, respect and understanding".

"During our discussions, we also reached agreement for the development of democracy in Myanmar and for promotion of human rights to be aligned with international standards," he said.