Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who will visit military-ruled Myanmar next month, may raise the issue of its transition to democracy, his spokesman said Thursday.

Yudhoyono is due to arrive in Myanmar, which is under increasing pressure from other Asian nations to show evidence of its reform efforts, for a two-day visit from March 1.

“The president will meet with Senior General Than Shwe and the emphasis of the talks will be on bilateral issues” covering diplomatic and economic topics, spokesman Dino Patti Jalal told reporters.

Asked whether the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi or the issue of Myanmar’s so-called roadmap to democracy would be raised, he said: “The issues will be bilateral, but the possibility is not foreclosed that this will also be discussed.”

He added that Indonesia would “assist, if we are asked by Myanmar, to implement their road map to democracy.”

Indonesia’s foreign minister said in January that Yudhoyono or a special envoy was planning to visit Myanmar in order to recount to the junta how Indonesia underwent its own transition fromauthoritarianism.

Yudhoyono’s visit comes as Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar is trying to finalize a date to go to Myanmar as an envoy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to check on its progress towards democracy.

Myanmar is holding Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and her National League of Democracy has been blocked from taking office despite winning elections in 1990.