YANGON  - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has decided not to attend a new session of parliament this week to give herself time to recover from a gruelling European tour, her party said Sunday. The 67-year-old, who returned on Saturday from a triumphant five-nation European tour after two weeks, had been due to take her place in the legislature for the first time as an elected MP on Wednesday. But Nyan Win, spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said she had received permission from parliament not to attend the first week's sessions. She will now make her debut as an MP on the following Monday, he said.
On her first visit to Europe in 24 years Suu Kyi - who spent almost two decades under house arrest - delivered her long delayed Nobel lecture, met pop stars and politicians and charmed the European public with speeches on her hopes for Myanmar.
The democracy champion was swept into parliament in a landmark April by-election that saw the NLD win 43 of the 44 seats it contested.
Her party colleagues are expected to attend parliament this week, marking the NLD's entrance into mainstream politics after years of repression under junta rule that ended last year.
The parliament, still dominated by the military and its political allies, is expected to discuss recent deadly communal violence which flared in western Myanmar, among other issues.