A senior United States official said on Tuesday that the time was not right to ease sanctions on Burma despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plans for a groundbreaking visit next week.

Clinton will seek progress on human rights, including on the treatment of ethnic minorities, but it is “premature” to discuss lifting sweeping sanctions on the military-backed government, White House official Ben Rhodes said.

“The secretary’s visit is in part to add momentum to what’s taken place and to explore what’s going forward but there are no plans right now to lift sanctions,” Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told reporters.

President Barack Obama announced last week at an East Asia Summit in Bali that Clinton would become the first US secretary of state to visit Burma in 50 years after the country’s government undertook reforms.