Suu Kyi delivers belated Nobel lecture

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OSLO, Norway, June 16 (UPI) -- Myanmar dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi, delivering a belated Nobel lecture Saturday, said that winning the Peace Prize in 1991 drew her back into the world.

Suu Kyi spent many years under house arrest and is now on her first trip outside the country formerly known as Burma in almost a quarter-century. She spoke at the city hall in Oslo, Norway.

When she was awarded the prize, it took several months for her to become aware of its significance, Suu Kyi said.

"It had made me real once again; it had drawn me back into the wider human community," she said. "And what was more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. We were not going to be forgotten."

Suu Kyi, who was elected to parliament in April, warned that political reform in Myanmar is fragile.

"The reform measures that were put into motion by President U Thein Sein's government can be sustained only with the intelligent cooperation of all internal forces: the military, our ethnic nationalities, political parties, the media, civil society organizations, the business community and, most important of all, the general public," she said.

Suu Kyi linked the struggle for democracy in Myanmar and an end to ethnic violence to similar struggles in other countries.

"Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. But it is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveler in a desert fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation," she said. "Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder."