Aung Suu Kyi to receive highest US award

Yangon : Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will receive the highest US award, the Congressional Gold Medal, when she visits that country this year.

She was expected to make the US trip in September. The top award was given to her in 2008, when she was under house arrest, the Mizzima News reported Wednesday.

She will also receive the Atlantic Council’s “Global Citizen” award, which was earlier given to Henry Kissinger, ex-diplomat, Japan’s Sadako Ogata, former UN high commissioner for refugees, and Quincy Jones, a composer and musician.

The trip will mark her first return to the US since she worked in New York City at the UN from 1969 to 1971. She will receive the award Sep 21.

Suu Kyi, 67, was released from house arrest in November 2010, and earlier this year was elected to Myanmar parliament.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had invited Suu Kyi to Washington when the top American diplomat visited the country in December.