YANGON, Myanmar ? Aung San Suu Kyi returned to public life Monday after 19 months of house arrest, breathing new life into the opposition’s struggle for democracy but aware that Myanmar’s military rulers will be loath to give up their iron grip on power.

Thousands of cheering supporters, including monks, nuns with shaved heads and ordinary people, greeted the beaming opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate, who said she will do “everything I can to bring democracy” to the country.

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi talks with supporters and well-wishers after praying at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. Suu Kyi was released from house arrest Monday after 19 months. The Shwedagon is consider by many as Myanmar's most holy Buddhist temple.

Her hair pulled back and tied with a garland of flowers, the petite Suu Kyi, 56, appeared radiant as she addressed a news conference at her party headquarters.

The European Union and the United States, which had been pressing for Suu Kyi’s release, hailed the move. President Bush said he hoped Suu Kyi’s release will lead to the restoration of democracy.

“All parties should seize this opportunity to press ahead with the urgent work of restoring the rule of law and basic political and civil rights for all Burmese,” Bush said.

Suu Kyi drove from her lakeside villa around noon, the car inching its way through a huge crowd of supporters and party workers wearing white shirts and sarongs and chanting “Long Live Aung San Suu Kyi.”

She said her release had been dubbed “a new dawn” for the country. “We only hope that the dawn will move very quickly to a full morning,” Suu Kyi said.

Her release is seen partly to be the result of intense international pressure, including the severe economic sanctions imposed by the West on the impoverished country in a bid to force political change.

Suu Kyi said the policies of her party would be maintained for now, implying that she still supported sanctions and bans on aid to Myanmar until democracy is established.

The sanctions have caused increased unemployment, and the departure of international firms haven’t helped the Myanmar economy, already in a shambles. The United States had stopped all aid to the country, and the European Union has had an arms embargo and a suspension of bilateral aid for the past 11 years.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said it is premature to talk about lifting sanctions. “We see this as a first step toward political dialogue,” he said.

Since 1995, more than 50 multinational corporations including PepsiCo, Wal-Mart, Texaco and ARCO, have cut ties with Myanmar. In 2000, the U.N. International Labor Organization increased the pressure on the junta by exposing the pervasive use of “forced labor” throughout the country.

The military has been in power in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, since 1962. The current group of generals took over in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy uprising that saw Suu Kyi come into prominence.

The junta put Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989 and called elections in 1990. It nullified the results after Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won overwhelmingly.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, was freed from house arrest in 1995 but was banned from traveling outside the capital, Yangon. She defied the order in September 2000, resulting in the latest round of house arrest.

But even while keeping her confined to the house, the junta began reconciliation talks with Suu Kyi in October 2000, brokered by U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail, who made his seventh trip to Myanmar last month.

Razali told The Associated Press on Monday that he expects democracy to return in “a couple of years” in Myanmar in terms of an elected government.