Aung San Suu Kyi leaves Myanmar for first time in 24 years
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at the Yangon International airport on May 29, 2012 enroute to Thailand.
Aung San Suu Kyi has left Myanmar for first time in 24 years for an historic world tour.
The Nobel laureate and opposition leader arrived in Thailand Tuesday to attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia, the BBC reported.
Over the past two decades she has been either under house arrest or afraid to leave her country for fear of not being able to return. Her recent election to parliament and new government reforms have changed all that, the BBC wrote.
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Suu Kyi told Agence France Presse the trip was "part of my job. I'm going to stay for four or five days… I will visit one refugee camp." An estimated 130,000 Burmese refugees live in camps in Thailand having fled persecution at home.
The Associated Press reported she plans to return home to Myanmar briefly and then go to Europe in mid-June. She will go to Oslo, Norway, to formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she won 21 years ago.
Other stops include the UK and Ireland. She is to address parliament in London and attend a concert in her honor with musician Bono from the band U2 in Dublin, according to the AP.
The trip abroad comes a day after Suu Kyi met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Yangon.
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