U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell concluded a rare two-day "exploratory" visit to Myanmar on Wednesday and said the U.S. government is willing to improve ties with Myanmar junta.

Campbell said in a statement that in meetings with the government, including Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, "we stated clearly that the United States is prepared to take steps to improve the relationship."

"But that process must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government," he cautioned, while adhering to the U.S. government practice of not referring to the country as "Myanmar" as the junta prefers it be known.

Campbell's statement came after he held two hours of talks with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the National League for Democracy, at a hotel in the country's largest city Yangon, which marked their first face-to-face meeting.

He said that during that meeting and in a separate meeting with ethnic representatives, "we reaffirmed our commitment to a dialogue among the government, the opposition and the ethnic groups."

"The goal of such a dialogue would be national reconciliation and a fully inclusive political process in Burma. Towards that end, we urged the Burmese government to allow Aung San Suu Kyi more frequent interactions with stakeholders, especially the Central Executive Committee of her own party."

In addition to Suu Kyi, Campbell met with six NLD Central Executive Committee members at the party's head office in Yangon.

One of them, Khin Maung Swe, said the NLD executives explained to him about the party's political stances such as calling on the government to review and amend the 2008 Constitution, to engage in dialogue, to release Suu Kyi and political prisoners and to make some arrangement to honor the results of the 1990 general election which the NLD won by a landslide.

"We also told Campbell that the Constitution had to be reviewed before the 2010 elections and that a meeting between (junta leader) Gen. Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is crucial in finding a political situation in the country," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Campbell and other U.S. diplomats held talks with Thein Sein, the premier, in the administrative capital Naypyitaw in the country's north, but they did not meet with Than Shwe.

Campbell called his visit "an exploratory mission designed to explain to key stakeholders inside the country the results of the U.S. policy review towards Burma and the strategic goals of our country that the review underscored."

He listed those goals as "strong support for human rights, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, and the pursuit of democratic reform."

Campbell's trip is part of U.S. President Barack Obama's new policy of engagement that reverses the George W. Bush administration's stance of avoiding high-level contact with the repressive military government.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, was sentenced in August to another 18-month stint under house arrest for allowing a U.S. intruder to stay at her home.

The sentence ensured that she will be unable to participate in the election scheduled for next year, the first in Myanmar in two decades. Her NLD won a sweeping victory in the 1990 election, but the junta has never honored the result.