AFP - US Senator Jim Webb met Myanmar military ruler Than Shwe and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi Saturday after securing the release of a US citizen jailed for visiting Suu Kyi's house in May.
  
Webb, a Democrat with close links to US President Barack Obama, became the first US official to hold talks with the reclusive Than Shwe, encountering the regime's supremo in his bunker-like capital, Naypyidaw, officials said.
  
Webb then flew to Yangon to meet Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi at a government guesthouse near her home -- her first meeting with a foreign official since her house arrest was extended by 18 months earlier this week.
  
She was driven to the meeting from her crumbling mansion in a convoy comprising her car and several police vehicles, witnesses said. She left the guesthouse about 45 minutes later.
  
Webb's office later issued a statement in Washington saying he had secured an agreement from the junta to release John Yettaw, who was jailed for seven years this week over an incident in which he swam to Suu Kyi's lakeside home.
  
"I am grateful to the Myanmar government," Webb was quoted as saying in the statement.
  
"It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future," Webb said.
  
"Yettaw will be officially deported on Sunday morning," the statement said, adding that "Senator Webb will bring him out of the country on a military aircraft that is returning to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon."
  
Webb had also urged Myanmar's military regime to free Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest, the statement said.
  
Officials in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, said earlier Saturday that Yettaw was likely to be deported, but only after Webb had left the country, an apparent result from Webb's one-hour talks with Than Shwe.
  
The Myanmar regime sparked international outrage when a court in the army-ruled nation convicted Yettaw and Suu Kyi over the May incident in which the he swam uninvited to her home.
  
"Mr Yettaw is likely to be deported after the visit by the US Senator. They will not leave together," a Myanmar official said on condition of anonymity after the meeting.
  
No reasons were immediately available from Myanmar officials for the apparent discrepancy over the timing of Yettaw's release and departure.
  
According to earlier reports, Webb was not due to meet Yettaw, a diabetic and epileptic former military veteran who is being held at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison. Yettaw was hospitalised earlier this month after suffering a series of fits.
  
Dissident groups have warned that Webb's visit could be manipulated by the Myanmar government to "endorse" its treatment of Suu Kyi and the more than 2,100 other political prisoners in the country's jails.
  
The UN Security Council issued a watered-down statement Thursday expressing "serious concern" about her detention, while the European Union the same day extended sanctions against the junta, including the judges in the trial.
  
Critics have accused the junta of trumping up the charges to keep Suu Kyi locked up during elections next year, and of using the polls themselves to legitimise their grip on power since 1962.
  
The junta refused to recognise the NLD's victory in elections in 1990
  
Both the White House and State Department welcomed Webb's trip, even though it is officially being made in a private capacity by the senator, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs.
  
The Obama administration said earlier this year that it was reviewing his predecessor George W. Bush's tough stance on Myanmar, even though Obama recently renewed sanctions against the regime.
  
Webb, a gruff Vietnam veteran, said in April that Washington should seek "constructive" engagement towards Myanmar with the aim of lifting sanctions, while admitting in July that the Suu Kyi trial made it more difficult.
  
Webb, 63, has written six novels and served in the late 1980s as secretary of the US Navy under Republican President Ronald Reagan.
  
Than Shwe has, meanwhile, been a long-term bete noire of the United States. A former postman, he has ruled Myanmar since 1992 with an iron-fist, ruthlessly suppressing his rivals.