Washington, DC – The United States believes lifting sanctions against Myanmar now, at the beginning of dialogue with that country’s military junta, would be a mistake, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia said on Wednesday.

“Lifting or easing sanctions at the outset of a dialogue without meaningful progress on our concerns would be a mistake,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in prepared remarks to a U.S. Senate panel.

Campbell met U Thaung, Myanmar’s minister of science, technology and labor in New York on Tuesday.

Campbell told a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing that the dialogue with the former Burma would “supplement rather than replace” long-standing sanctions Washington that has imposed on Myanmar.

Following a U.S. policy review on Myanmar, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said Washington will pursue deeper engagement with Myanmar’s military rulers to try to spur democratic reform but will not ease sanctions for now.

Washington has gradually tightened sanctions on the generals who rule the country to try to force them into political rapprochement with Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar plans next year to hold its first election in two decades, which the junta says will bring an end to almost five decades of unbroken military rule. Many analysts suspect the generals will still hold the real power.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Will Dunham)