YANGON -- A top UN envoy trying to salvage flagging reconciliation talks between Myanmar's ruling military and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met the country's top general before the end of his visit on Friday.

Diplomats have said that if Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail's four-day visit fails to find any signs of political progress in the isolated country, the credibility of the peace talks will be severely dented and further sanctions are possible.

Razali, a Malaysian diplomat who played a key role in brokering the talks between the two sides in October 2000, met Senior General Than Shwe, head of the ruling Junta, on Friday morning for the first time since the talks began.

"This is just a courtesy call," Razali told Reuters as he entered the meeting.

He was smiling and appeared relaxed but declined to make any other comment. UN aides accompanying Razali, said the special envoy was "optimistic".

Razali said on Thursday he was confident of progress but could not predict when it would come.

On Thursday evening, he had dinner with Suu Kyi at the lakeside Yangon home where she has been held under house arrest for 18 months. It was his second meeting with the 56-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner this week.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won Myanmar's last elections in 1990 by a landslide but the military refused to recognize the result and jailed hundreds of NLD members.

Since the start of talks between the two sides in 2000, the military has released more than 200 political prisoners. But more than 1,000 are believed to still languish in jail, and the talks have produced no sign of concrete political progress.

--- Patience Waning ---

Razali's visit is his seventh visit in his capacity as a UN special envoy. Analysts say the international community's patience with the lack of progress in the talks is wearing thin.

Top of the international community's demands is the release of Suu Kyi.

Diplomats say this alone can help allay growing suspicion that the ruling generals are merely using the talks to try to improve their image, end their poverty-stricken country's isolation and lift crippling sanctions imposed by many countries, including the United States and nations in Europe.

Many diplomats, however, fear the military is in fact hardening its attitude towards the talks with Suu Kyi.

The Junta said last month it had foiled a coup bid by relatives and cronies of elderly former dictator Ne Win. His son-in-law and three grandsons were arrested and are to be put on trial for high treason, which carries the death penalty.

Many in Myanmar welcomed the arrests. Ne Win began decades of dictatorial military rule in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, when he seized power in 1962, and presided over the country's decline from being one of Asia's richest to one of its most backward.

Many analysts doubt a coup was ever seriously planned, and say the allegations are being used by the military to purge its ranks. They say the purge has strengthened the hand of hardliners opposed to making any concessions to Suu Kyi.

Razali's latest visit was initially scheduled for last month, but the Junta asked him to postpone it at the last minute, raising questions about the future of the dialogue with Suu Kyi.