The European Union will open an office in Burma’s main city Rangoon to manage aid programmes and play a “political role”, the spokesman of the bloc’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton said Thursday.

“We have agreed with the authorities in Myanmar [Burma] to open a representative office in Yangon [Rangoon],” Michael Mann told AFP.

“It will not be an EU delegation. It will be responsible for management of aid programmes but it will also have a political role,” he said, adding that the office “will be managed by the EU delegation in Thailand and will open as soon as it is administratively possible”.

The United States and European countries have imposed economic sanctions on Burma over its human rights record, including the imprisonment of about 2,000 political detainees, about 200 of whom were freed last month.

The EU has launched a “substantial review” of its policy towards Burma, Ashton said in November after the government allowed the party of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to re-register as a political party.

Suu Kyi has now been allowed to contest by-elections on 1 April.

The 66-year-old opposition leader could enter parliament for the first time if she goes ahead with plans to contest the by-elections.