The European Union today pushed Burma for the immediate release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees in the 25-nation bloc's first ministerial talks with the Rangoon junta.

On the sidelines of an Asia-Europe Meeting, two top EU diplomats handed Burma Foreign Minister Nyan Win a list of prisoners which he agreed to review, an official said.

European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told him the detainees should be immediately released "not just out of justice but out of humanitarian concern as many on the list are ill," said Ferrero-Waldner's spokeswoman, Emma Udwin.

"He undertook to consider the list," Udwin said. "It was a useful meeting."

"The point of this meeting was to make very clear face-to-face our concerns about the situation in this country and to press for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners," she said, without giving the number of people on the list.

"We also underlined the need of rapidly moving toward democracy," she said.

It was the first time the EU leadership has met with the Rangoon junta on the level of foreign ministers, Udwin said.

She said the meeting was part of a European effort both to engage Burma through aid but impose "targeted sanctions" aimed at pressuring the junta.

Twice detained

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, has spent most of the past 15 years in detention after her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but was never allowed to take power.

She was released in May 2002 but growing tensions saw her back under house arrest only a year later.

EU foreign ministers last month renewed sanctions for a year against Burma which restrict travel by officials and prevent investment in the country.

At the same time the EU and its member states have expanded financial assistance to help improve health, schooling and the environment for the people of Burma, totalling about US$45 million this year.

"We don't want ordinary people to suffer hardship," Udwin said.

Asselborn, in a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura, said there had been some opposition to holding the meeting with Burma in Kyoto.

"There has been some argument about whether to hold a high-level meeting with Burma which has the human rights issue," Asselborn said, as quoted by a Japanese foreign ministry official.

But he said: "We need to send a message to Burma to release people arrested for political reasons. The EU thinks it is not only giving pressure but promoting dialogue."

Protest in Kyoto

As Nyan Win was driven to the venue of the talks in this historic Japanese city, about 60 people from Burma dressed in traditional clothes and straw hats yelled in chorus, "Free Aung San Suu Kyi right now. Peace and freedom in Burma," and held up pictures of the opposition leader.

"We expect a lot from the Asem (Asia-Europe Meeting) because it is a great opportunity to put extra pressure on the military regime," said Myint Maung, 42, who took part in the demonstration under light rain.

"I hope Japan and Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will follow sanctions imposed by the EU, which will be really effective on the money-stripped regime," he said.

Both the EU and the United States, which also has tough sanctions on Burma, have warned that relations with Asean would be at risk if Rangoon takes the bloc's rotating chairmanship in 2006.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said after talks involving Asean here that "there is plenty of time to see and discuss the matter" of Burma's leadership.

"We will find a way ultimately," he told AFP .