SINGAPORE (AFP) -- Myanmar should build on the meeting between a top UN envoy and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to work with the international community toward democratic reforms, Singapore said Monday.

"Singapore is happy to learn that UN Under-Secretary Ibrahim Gambari had a good visit in Myanmar, including having a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in response to media queries. "We hope Myanmar will build on Gambari's visit and work closely with the international community, including the UN and ASEAN, to make further progress." The spokesman reiterated the position by Myanmar's fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that "Aung San Suu Kyi should be released as soon as possible."

Gambari, the UN under-secretary general for political affairs, held a surprise meeting with the 60-year-old democracy icon in Yangon on Saturday, the final day of a three-day mission aimed at pressing the military government on reforms. They talked for about one hour.

Gambari also met with the leader of Myanmar's ruling junta, Senior General Than Shwe, at a secret jungle compound near the central town of Pyinmana.

A diplomatic source in Yangon said the UN envoy was believed to have asked Than Shwe's permission to see Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest in Yangon.

The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of national elections won by the National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The last foreign visitor to see the opposition leader was Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar, in March 2004.

Analysts said Myanmar set up the meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and Gambari in an attempt to block UN Security Council action against the junta amid growing international pressure on the regime for democratic reforms.