YANGON -- Myanmar has condemned Western pressure for the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, warning it would delay moving the impoverished country toward democracy, state media reported on Sunday.

"Under no circumstances will the Union of Myanmar let its independence and sovereignty be subjugated by others," military intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt was quoted as saying in state-run ***Kyemon*** newspaper. "Some Western countries have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar with every intent to jeopardize the national economy and put the Myanmar people into deep trouble, so that they can influence on Myanmar."

The general was apparently referring to economic sanctions imposed by Washington on Myanmar last month after the military took Suu Kyi into custody following a bloody clash between her supporters and pro-government youths on May 30.

Japan has also frozen new aid to the country.

Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country since a 1962 coup and rejected a 1990 landslide election victory by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, has also rejected a recent unprecedented public rebuke by its Southeast Asian neighbors for holding Suu Kyi.

"The U.S. decision to impose economic sanctions is an utterly wrong foreign policy because it will make democratization in Myanmar more difficult to attain and it will only affect peoples of the two countries," said ***Kyemon*** in a separate commentary. Human rights groups say civil right abuses in Myanmar have risen since Suu Kyi's arrest, Reuters reported.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung said on Saturday the government would take time to study proposals from neighboring Thailand on the country's democratic transition.