UNITED NATIONS - UN TROUBLESHOOTER Ibrahim Gambari is due in Yangon on Thursday to lay the groundwork for a planned visit to Myanmar by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, sources said here on Wednesday.

Mr Gambari was to confer with members of the ruling military junta as well as with Myanmar politicians, including members of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), they added.

Mr Gambari is to brief the UN secretary general on the outcome of his mission and Mr Ban will then decide whether to go ahead with plans to visit Myanmar early next month, according to the UN sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The UN boss and Mr Gambari have been trying to persuade Myanmar rulers to free all political detainees, including Ms Suu Kyi, and to steer their country on the path to democracy and national reconciliation.

Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention since the ruling junta refused to recognise the landslide victory of her NLD in 1990 elections.

She is being held on charges of violating her house arrest after an American man swam to her lakeside house earlier this year. The charges against her come amid a wide-ranging crackdown on the opposition that has been carried out since the ruling generals crushed protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962. -- AFP