YANGON, Myanmar – Detained Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (search) is not on a hunger strike as reported by the United States, a Red Cross spokesman said Saturday after group officials visited the Nobel laureate.
The officials met with Suu Kyi for about an hour, said Jean Pascal Moret, a communications officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross mission in Yangon.
"She is well and not on hunger strike," he said, declining to say where Suu Kyi was being held.
A State Department spokesman said last week the agency received "credible reporting from our embassy" that Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike to protest her detention by the country's military regime.
Spokesman Richard Boucher would not elaborate on the sourcing of the report about Suu Kyi but said the United States was "deeply concerned for her safety and her well-being."
Myanmar (search) had dismissed the report as "groundless" and "quite odd," and denied that Suu Kyi was refusing food.
Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, was arrested May 30 along with a group of her supporters while on a political tour of northern Myanmar.
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, refuses to say where she is being held or how long she will be in detention.
Moret said a doctor did not accompany the two Red Cross officials because one was not requested. He added that Suu Kyi is aware of the reports she was on a hunger strike.
Myanmar's military seized power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy uprising. It held elections in 1990 but annulled the results after Suu Kyi's party won.
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