Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, and his deputy, Scot Marciel, held talks with junta officials and also were to meet detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years.

The Obama administration has reversed the Bush administration's isolation of Myanmar in favor of direct, high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.

"Mr. Campbell's visit is the beginning of a new U.S. engagement policy toward Myanmar," said Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party. "This is the first step of the engagement, but we have to see what comes out of the new engagement policy."

Campbell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Myanmar since a September 1995 trip by then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright.

The American diplomats flew yesterday from neighboring Thailand to Myanmar's administrative capital of Naypyitaw in a U.S. Air Force plane, Mei said. He said Campbell was continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade.

Evening news broadcasts on Myanmar's state television did not mention the two-day visit.

Myanmar government officials said that Campbell would meet the prime minister, Gen. Thein Sein, early today. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, said Campbell held talks with several cabinet ministers and other officials yesterday.

Nyan Win said that Campbell would meet with Suu Kyi in Yangon today and then hold talks with other NLD leaders at party headquarters.