{"id":38319,"date":"2014-01-29T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=b2a87efba748feb1f6b2e6487ea9ecfa"},"modified":"2014-01-29T13:06:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T13:06:00","slug":"press-release-foreign-office-minister-visits-burmas-kachin-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=38319","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Foreign Office Minister visits Burma\u2019s Kachin State"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>His visit is part of a wider tour of Burma where he has been meeting key political figures, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and discussing the country\u2019s progress on democratic reform.<\/p>\n<p>Hugo Swire said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I am delighted to be the first British Minister to visit Burma\u2019s Kachin State since independence in 1948. The Kachin people made a brave and invaluable contribution to the Allied effort in World War II, and I was honoured to speak of our immense gratitude directly to a group of veterans. I also brought a personal message to them from Viscount Slim, son of the great Field Marshal Slim.<\/p>\n<p>It is tragic that this beautiful state today remains blighted by conflict. I urged all sides to build on the momentum in the peace process towards a nationwide ceasefire. I made clear to the authorities the importance of ensuring unfettered humanitarian access, of respecting international human rights standards, and of investigating transparently any allegations of violations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">And I visited a camp for Internally Displaced Peoples where I saw first hand the difference the UK is making as the largest bilateral donor of humanitarian aid to Kachin.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In Kachin, Minister Swire also met UN agencies working in the area to hear first-hand about their work and how the UK can contribute. The UK is providing \u00a313.5m over 2 \u00bd years. <\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow Mr Swire will meet leaders from the Rohingya and Rakhine communities, give a speech at Rangoon University and meet British businesses.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"further-information\">Further information<\/h3>\n<p>Follow Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire on twitter <a rel=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HugoSwire\">@HugoSwire<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow the Foreign Office on twitter <a rel=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/foreignoffice\">@foreignoffice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow the Foreign Office on <a rel=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/foreignoffice?ref=hl\">facebook<\/a> and <a rel=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/b\/105922144104190309938\/+foreignoffice\/posts\">Google+<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"contact\" id=\"contact_193\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h3>Media enquiries<\/h3>\n<div class=\"vcard contact-inner\">\n<div class=\"email-url-number\">\n<p class=\"email\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Email<\/span><br \/>\n              <a class=\"email\" href=\"mailto:newsdesk@fco.gov.uk\">newsdesk@fco.gov.uk<\/a>\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Telephone<\/span><br \/>\n              020 7008 3100\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire is the first British Minister since World War II to visit Kachin State in Burma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38368,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38319\/revisions\/38368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}