Invite's 'age limit' puts off China visit by Aung San Suu Kyi

Members of Myanmar's leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy, will make their first official visit to China next week - but leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not attend because the party said Beijing excluded delegates older than 60.

The age limit, which was not explained, would delay a much anticipated China trip by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was freed from years of house arrest by Myanmar's Beijing-backed military junta in 2010.

"If the Chinese Communist Party invites her, I think she is ready to go there," said Han Thar Myint, an NLD Central Executive Committee member. "In the [May] invitation, it was mentioned that the delegates should be under 60 years of age. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is now 67, so she can't go there."

But Gao Mingbo, political section chief of Beijing's embassy in Yangon, said he was "not aware" of the under-60 rule.

"I take this visit as a warming-up exercise," Gao said. "As the Chinese saying goes, a channel is made when the water flows."