Yangon, Myanmar ? Myanmar’s junta Thursday broke its isolation of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and held the first official talks since locking up the pro-democracy advocate more than 18 years ago.

The meeting was broadcast, without audio, by state-run television and showed Suu Kyi and the military-regime’s labor minister, Aung Kyi, sitting in high-back chairs and having a discussion for more than an hour in a state guest house. Suu Kyi was not allowed to make a public statement.

The meeting was arranged after the shooting of peaceful protesters in Myanmar last month triggered international outrage, and prompted a United Nations envoy urge reforms during a visit to the country. The military junta named Aung, a retired general, as its official liaison for any dialogue with Suu Kyi.

The government says 10 people were killed in the crackdown, while human rights groups and Western governments insist the death toll is higher.

Hundreds of riot police armed with assault rifles and tear gas moved into position at sites in Yangon at the site of the demonstration a month ago today.

The sudden show of force after several weeks of relative quiet in Myanmar’s largest city appeared aimed at forestalling any protests to mark the one-month anniversary of a key day in the anti-regime uprising by Buddhist monks, activists and ordinary citizens.

There were no immediate signs that any public protests would take place.

Security was especially tight at the eastern gate of the famed Shwedagon pagoda where monks were beaten as police broke up a protest on Sept. 26. Barbed wire was erected around the area while police also took up positions near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of the city and other sites of earlier protests.

Today also marks the end of the Lent period, an important Buddhist holiday when monks can leave their monasteries to travel after several months of monsoon season retreats.

Seen as a moderate problem-solver, Aung also has been the junta’s point man handling foreign complaints about the military’s alleged use of forced labor.

Suu Kyi, 62, held secret talks with the junta in October 2000, but the two sides failed to make significant progress toward democracy. She was freed from house arrest in May 2002, only to be arrested again a year later.

Suu Kyi was first detained without charge, in July 1989, when the country was under martial law. The previous year, she had led hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators when the procession at her mother’s funeral became an anti-junta march.