WASHINGTON - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi warned on Tuesday that reforms in her country had cleared only the "first hurdle" and said she supported an easing of U.S. sanctions as part of a broad partnership with Washington.

The Nobel laureate said the economic sanctions were a useful tool for putting pressure on Myanmar's military government in the past, but now the people need to consolidate democracy without outside help.

"I do support the easing of sanctions, because I think that our people can start taking responsibility for their own destiny," she said at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington on the opening day of a two-week tour of the United States.

"I do not think we should depend on U.S. sanctions to keep up the momentum of our movement to democracy. We have to work at it ourselves and there are very many other ways in which the United States can help us," said Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi did not specify which of the complex web of sanctions that Washington began phasing out this year she wanted removed. State Department officials did not indicate that she had made any formal requests on sanctions during talks on Tuesday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"We are going to do this in a measured way as we see progress, and the secretary did lay out the list (of what more needs to be done)," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters after the meeting.

"We will continue to watch that and make our decisions as we see more progress," she added.

Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for championing democracy in opposition to a military junta that held her under house arrest for years, began her tour with talks with Clinton and a speech hosted by the USIP and the Asia Society.

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Clinton told the same event Suu Kyi's followers and the quasi-civilian government needed to work together to heal past wounds and "guard against backsliding because there are forces that would take the country in the wrong direction if given the chance." 

In brief comments open to reporters at the start of their meeting, Clinton and Suu Kyi discussed the Burmese expatriate community in Indiana that she will travel to during her 17-day stay.

"There's so much excitement and enthusiasm that you can actually come," Clinton said.

Hours before Suu Kyi touched down in Washington, Myanmar announced Monday a new round of prisoner releases.

Myanmar frees hundreds of prisoners as it seeks to boost US ties

According to Suu Kyi's party, at least 87 political detainees were freed but activists say they are disappointed that hundreds more remain behind bars.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday the United States has yet to identify those freed and declined to comment on whether Washington could soon waive its import ban.

From dissident to parliamentarian
Since Suu Kyi herself was freed from house arrest in late 2010, she has transitioned from dissident to parliamentarian. Now confident of her position in Myanmar and free to travel abroad without being barred from returning, Suu Kyi has in the past four months also visited Thailand and Europe, where she was accorded honors usually reserved for heads of state.

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She is also assured of star treatment in the United States, where she is revered by Democrats and Republicans alike.

The ceremonial highlight of Suu Kyi's U.S. visit will come Wednesday, when she is presented Congress' highest award that she was granted in absentia in 2008 when she was still under house arrest. She is also likely to be welcomed to the White House.

That is a powerful sign of how a former pariah state has shifted from five decades of repressive military rule, gaining international acceptance.

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The Obama administration has been at the forefront of the re-engagement that gathered steam when Clinton visited Myanmar last December. In July, the administration allowed U.S. companies to start investing there again.

"For her to come here and collect the Congressional Gold Medal and celebrate with the activists who have stood by her for so many years is momentous," said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, which will host Suu Kyi on Thursday. The rights group hopes a Suu Kyi visit will help energize a new generation of activists.

Myanmar ends press censorship in latest shift from oppression

But the administration is being careful to balance its plaudits for Suu Kyi with praise and recognition for the former general who has made the reforms possible -- President Thein Sein. He arrives in the United States next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders in New York. Any announcement on easing the import ban is likely to take place at that time.

Regime official to attend ceremony
In a sign of that diplomatic balancing act, a key aide to Thein Sein, minister of the president's office Aung Min, who has been at the forefront of cease-fire negotiations with Myanmar's ethnic insurgents, will have high-level meetings at the State Department on Wednesday. He will also attend Suu Kyi's Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at the Capitol.

As Myanmar reforms, discontent grips countryside

Suu Kyi is under political pressure from Thein Sein's government to press the United States to remove the remaining sanctions -- and it's a step that she appears willing to consider, although many of her longtime supporters in exile oppose it, saying reforms have yet to take root and Myanmar should not be rewarded at a time when ethnic violence is escalating in some parts of the country.

Fighting in northern Kachin state between the military and ethnic rebels continues and has displaced tens of thousands people. Communal violence in western Rakhine state in June left scores dead, and Suu Kyi herself has faced some criticism for not speaking out in support of the region's downtrodden Rohingya Muslims who are denied citizenship.

Despite her global standing and April election to parliament, Suu Kyi still has little clout in the military-dominated legislature, and rights activists fear that it is military cronies who will benefit most as Myanmar opens up to foreign investors.

Suu Kyi will have a frenetic schedule in the United States, combining high-level meetings with award ceremonies and get-togethers with Burmese expatriates and activists who long campaigned for her release.

March 30: Carnival-like atmosphere in Myanmar ahead of election

On Wednesday when she is presented with the congressional award, Suu Kyi will meet with House and Senate leaders. The White House has yet to announce whether she will meet President Barack Obama.

After Washington, she travels later in the week to New York, where she worked from 1969 to 1971 at the United Nations. Suu Kyi will then go to Kentucky to address the University of Louisville, before traveling to meet with one of America's largest Burmese communities in Fort Wayne, Ind. She will also visit San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar pardoned more than 500 prisoners on Monday in an amnesty that included political detainees, according to the opposition party, a step that could strengthen the former military state's growing bonds with Washington.

A government bulletin announcing the news on state television did not make clear if any of those affected were political inmates. But Naing Naing, an official of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said he was hopeful the amnesty included the country's 424 remaining political prisoners.

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"We're optimistic that these are the remaining political prisoners," said Naing Naing, himself a former political prisoner.

The NLD, he added, received word of the freed political prisoners from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thai-based group that tracks prisoners in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Contacted by Reuters, Bo Kyi, secretary-general of the AAPP, said political prisoners were among those who had been released but the organization needed more time to confirm the number.

Suu Kyi about to visit US
The timing of the amnesty is significant, coming days ahead of a visit to the United States by Myanmar's reformist President, Thein Sein, and a separate U.S. trip that began on Monday by opposition leader Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner.

Her election to parliament in April helped to transform Myanmar's pariah image and convince the West to begin rolling back sanctions after a year of dramatic reforms, including the release of about 700 political prisoners in amnesties between May 2011 and July this year.

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The United States has repeatedly called for all remaining dissidents to be freed as a pre-condition for further economic rewards, including a relaxation of a ban on imports of Myanmar-made products imposed years ago in response to human rights abuses.

Naing Naing of the NLD said the 424 freed political prisoners excluded inmates who were former military intelligence officials purged under the military junta that ruled for 49 years as one of Asia's most oppressive regimes before ceding power to a semi-civilian government in March last year.

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Suu Kyi left Sunday for the United States where she will receive a Congressional medal.

Thein Sein, a former general, was due to head to the United States on Sept. 24, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time as president.

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YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar abolished press censorship on Monday, the latest in a series of dramatic economic and political reforms by the quasi-civilian regime and one that carries risks for its ability to manage change.

The government's announcement marks a U-turn from the oppressive policies of the military that ran Myanmar for almost 50 years until March 2011. The military government's censors not only kept tight control over the media but monitored every song, cartoon, book and piece of art for subversive content.

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After lifting some restrictions on publications in June last year, the authorities on Monday extended press freedom to the remaining 80 political and six religious journals.

'Great day for all journalists in Myanmar'
"Any publication inside the country will not have to get prior permission from us before they are published, effective today," said Tint Swe, head of the press censorship board at the Ministry of Information.

He explained the move to editors and publishers at his department earlier on Monday.

"From now on, our department will just carry out registering publications for keeping them at the national archives and issuing a license to printers and publishers," he said.

As Myanmar reforms, discontent grips countryside

"This is a great day for all journalists in Myanmar, who have labored under these odious restrictions for far too many years," an editor at a Yangon weekly publication who preferred not to be named told AFP.

"It is also another encouraging example of the progress that the country is making under (President) Thein Sein's government," the editor told AFP.

In 2011-12, the international news media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranked Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, number 169 out of 179 countries in press freedom.

March 30: Carnival-like atmosphere in Myanmar ahead of election

The Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Myanmar as the seventh-most censored country in the world.

In its January 2012 report, Reporters Without Borders noted that Myanmar had "showed signs of beginning to carry out reforms including partial amnesties and a reduction in prior censorship, but it remained largely under the control of an authoritarian government run by former members of the military junta reinvented as civilian politicians."

Keep up reforms, Clinton urges Myanmar

Earlier this month, two journals were briefly suspended for publishing articles without prior approval from censors, prompting journalists to take to the streets in protest.

Report: Rohingya Muslims 'persecuted' after Myanmar crackdown

State-run newspapers only
Privately-run daily newspapers in Myanmar are still not permitted, leaving a monopoly to state-run newspapers that have changed little in style or substance since the military was in control.

Asked about the chance of private dailies being allowed to start up, Tint Swe said: "We can say it has become closer than before. It could happen after enacting the necessary media law."

U.S. Congress reauthorizes import ban on Myanmar

Journalists welcomed the lifting of restrictions but some were worried their reports could still fall foul of various laws on the statute book.

"It's a big improvement on the past. I do welcome it but there will be more responsibilities on the editors since there are some existing laws under which action can be taken against journalists for their writing," said Wai Phyo, chief editor of the Weekly Eleven journal.

Zaw Htike, a senior reporter and secretary of the Myanmar Journalists Network, which has more than 200 members, had a similar view, and added that journalists would now have to take more responsibility for what they wrote.

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"I believe we also need to promote a code of ethics among journalists," he said.

Some censorship remains
Still, film censorship remains in place, an information ministry official told AFP. In addition, TV journalists "self censor" by asking for instructions about sensitive news, the official told AFP.

Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalist's Southeast Asia representative in Bangkok, told The Associated Press that "if the government is sincere in ending pre-publication censorship, it would represent a significant step forward for press freedom in Burma."

But Crispin also told the AP that if press laws were not reformed as well, "then all of these promises can be easily rolled back if they feel a free press threatens government security."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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She was already an international symbol of the fight against oppression and a unique figurehead for democracy. But, Aung San Suu Kyi -- the woman who took on Myanmar's military rulers armed with little more than the strength of her convictions -- was this week elevated to even higher status.

The end of Suu Kyi’s European tour has officially marked her arrival as a truly global political icon. But behind the smiles and oft-witnessed stoicism that define her public persona is a story of terrible personal loss, a heart-breaking tale of personal sacrifice: Two boys who grew up without their mother and a husband who died of cancer in her absence.

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It is part of the narrative that defines Suu Kyi, 67, and made her return to Europe after 24 years away even more poignant and moving.

She is the daughter of national hero Aung San, the man who secured Burma’s independence from British rule in 1947.

He was killed when Suu Kyi was just 2 years old. His death and legacy laid the foundations of her incredible future commitment to her country.

In her early 20s, she studied at Oxford University in England, where she met and fell in love with Michael Aris, the man who would become her husband. It was during this very happy marriage that Suu Kyi got what many have defined as “her calling.”

Suu Kyi: Nobel Prize 'made me real once again'

In March 1988 her two boys, Alexander and Kim, were sleeping upstairs in their home in Oxford while she was reading quietly with Michael when a phone call came that would change their lives and Myanmar's political history forever.

Her mother was sick and needed her.

Suu Kyi packed her bags and flew back to her homeland. On arrival, she found not just a mother who was dying but a country in the midst of great political turmoil. Within months she had buried her mother and taken the lead in the non-violent struggle against a brutal military regime that was slaughtering protesters en masse.  By July 1989, she was placed under house arrest.

In the time that followed, Suu Kyi believed she would soon return to Oxford, but the days turned into months, the months into years. In total, she spent 24 years away from her beloved England, either in detention or unable to leave for fear of not being allowed back. She saw her sons only occasionally when the regime allowed them to visit.

Author and Journalist, Peter Popham, who has met Aung San Suu Kyi twice, wrote a biography about her called “The Lady and The Peacock.”

"Neither she nor her husband imagined that it would lead to the destruction of the family," he said. “Michael is on the record as saying he expected the regime to collapse before Christmas."

But many Christmases came and went and the boys turned into men, without their mother’s presence.

Earlier: Large crowds welcome Suu Kyi as she travels Thailand during world tour

A very public reunion took place last November between her and her younger son Kim, by then 33 years old. At the airport in Rangoon she cast a delicate and lonely figure but also a mother like any other desperately awaiting the arrival of her son.

Watching the video footage of it now, it's a very moving moment. Kim turns up and they smile for the cameras; she looks up proudly at her tall, handsome son. It had been 10 years since she had last seen him and she had then never met her grandchildren.

There are many conflicting rumors about her older son, Alexander, who did not attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, last weekend. Some say he has found it difficult to forgive his mother's absence.

In an ITN interview Tuesday, Suu Kyi had a pragmatic response: “We have never spoken of forgiveness as such,” she said, “but we also have to remember that although my sons may not have had me near them, their position was so much better than that of many young people in Burma.”

But what about her? Was she a mother who made a painful sacrifice for her country?

'Stubborn streak'
Popham said that she did not view this as sacrifice but more as a choice with the agreement of her sons and husband. 

"Many people wonder why she has been unable to express her feelings for the loss of her family,” he said, “and they think that maybe this is because she is rather a cold person to whom the family doesn’t mean much, but this is a serious misunderstanding.”

Her “stubborn streak” -- a personal trait she referred to when in London this week -- may have had a big role to play, as may have a certain lightness of being. She keeps a poker face, notable during her trip this week, but it is also interjected with moments of mischief.

All her speeches have been peppered with irreverent references and she was often caught grinning broadly; a sense of humor never seems far away.

Bono, of the band U2, a long-time supporter, told me that she combines charisma with a unique determination.

“She is still inside herself,” he said, “And steely; there is a toughness as well as a tenderness.”

Her Buddhist meditation practice is said to have helped her during her longest and darkest moments, as has her own childhood marked with control, resolve and poise. These were coping mechanisms that got her through the last two decades.

Popham said she was always careful not to reveal what she really thought.

“She was an extremely devoted mother and housewife and the separation for years was certainly something that was never envisaged.” He continued, “She’s never spoken about it, spoken about the pain that she undoubtedly endured because to do so would be a way of telling the military regime your strategy is working. I am suffering.”

When asked this week about the family she left behind, she was as direct and confident in her answer as ever.

"I don't feel good about it,” she said, “but on the other hand I think that in the end one decides what one's priorities are, and one lives with one's decisions."

She’s had a quarter of a century to make peace with those decisions. Her return to the U.K. must have been overwhelmingly bittersweet.

But, long accustomed to being a woman who keeps her feelings private, in Dublin she told me simply that her trip had been “absolutely stupendous.”

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Updated at 8:40 a.m ET: OSLO, Norway -- Myanmar opposition leader and international democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi finally accepted her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Saturday after spending a total of 15 years under house arrest.  

In the speech, Suu Kyi said full political freedom in her country was still a long way off, and talked about the isolation she felt during the years under house arrest. She said the prize had "made me real once again … it had drawn attention to the struggle for democracy in Burma," according to Germany's Deutsche Welle.

Suu Kyi, the Oxford University-educated daughter of General Aung San, Myanmar's assassinated independence hero, also advocated caution about transformation in Myanmar, whose quasi-civilian government continues to hold political prisoners. 

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"Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal," Suu Kyi said in her acceptance speech during her first trip to Europe in nearly 25 years. 

"Hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before I started out the journey that has brought me here today," she said.

Large crowds welcome Suu Kyi as she travels Thailand during world tour

"There still remain such prisoners in Burma. It is to be feared that because the best known detainees have been released, the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten," Suu Kyi, 66, told a packed Oslo City Hall. 

A day earlier, she arrived from Switzerland to a jubilant reception as dancing and chanting crowds filled Oslo's streets and showered her with flowers. 

Suu Kyi never left Myanmar even during brief periods of freedom after 1989, afraid the military would not let back in. 

Her sons, Kim and Alexander had accepted the Nobel prize on her behalf in 1991, with her husband Michael Aris also attending the ceremony. A year later Suu Kyi announced she would use the $1.3 million prize money to establish a health and education trust for Burmese people. 

She was unable to be with Aris, an Oxford academic, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in Britain in 1999. 

Earlier, Norwegian government leaders said they have eagerly awaited Saturday's speech at Oslo City Hall since Suu Kyi won the world's highest diplomatic honor in 1991. But Suu Kyi said she never doubted that she would travel one day to Oslo to give her honorific lecture.

"Yes of course, I always believed that. That's why I have always said that the first time I traveled abroad I would come to Norway," she said in answer to a reporter's question. "I never doubted that. Did you?"

Switzerland was the first stop on a planned two-week tour of Europe also taking in Ireland, Britain and France. The journey is her first in Europe since 1988, the year she left her husband and two young sons in England to visit her ill mother back home -- and became the focal point for the country's nascent democracy movement.

Before accepting the prize, a tired-looking, rarely smiling Suu Kyi appeared to be recovering from falling ill on Thursday.

"We are not at the end of the road, by no means, we are just starting out," she said on Friday. 

She both warned that her country's political transformation was not irreversible and the military had to give up its excessive powers and rejected a suggestion that her aim was to dismantle the military. 

"I have never thought that I was doing anything against the military, I've always said I want the military, the army to be an honorable, professional army that is respected by the people," Suu Kyi said at a press conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Friday.

Myanmar refugees flee in rickety boats after sectarian clashes

"I fight against what is dangerous for the democratic process and the military having the kind of powers that they shouldn't have certainly endangers the democratic process," said Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi's 17-day European trip has been clouded by sectarian violence between Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslim Rohingyas, testing Myanmar's 15-month-old government.

On Friday, a fragile peace held in the wake of days of that has stoked nationalist fervor and displaced 30,000 people and killed 29 by government accounts.

The government has made peace and unity among Myanmar's many ethnic groups its mantra and has struck ceasefire deals with minority Karen, Shan, Mon and Chin rebels, among others, after decades of hostilities.

But there is entrenched, long-standing animosity between Rakhine Buddhists and around 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas, who mostly live in abject conditions and who still do not possess citizenship.

Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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