Jakarta  - Indonesian authorities have forced organizers to cancel a conference of exiled dissidents from Myanmar to discuss reconciliation and democratic transition in the military-ruled country, an organizer said Wednesday.

Members of Myanmar's self-proclaimed government-in-exile were in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to talk about a plan for a transition to democracy, said Roshan Jason, executive director of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus.

The caucus gathers legislators from the member countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) who advocate democracy in Myanmar, which was once known as Burma.

"Police, the authorities of Indonesia and perhaps the Foreign Ministry seem to be interfering with the gathering of politicians from Burma who are here in good will to share their vision for a democratic Myanmar," Jason said.

Jason said the restrictions ran counter to Indonesia's desire to be a mediator between Myanmar's opposition and military regime.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said the Indonesian government objected to the presence of Myanmar's government-in-exile.

"It's hard for us to facilitate such a meeting," Faizasyah said. "The government's policy is that we don't recognize the government in exile."

"We don't want to be part of the problem," he said.

The conference was supposed to be held Wednesday and Thursday, but organizers said that instead of the full-fledged forum, delegates would meet briefly Wednesday morning and hold talks with Indonesian legislators who are members of the Myanmar caucus later in the day.

Myanmar's government-in-exile was set up in 1990 by Sein Win and other members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after the military junta refused to recognize the party's election victory that year.

The cancellation of the Jakarta conference came after a court in Myanmar on Tuesday handed Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, an additional 18 months of house detention for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest after an uninvited US citizen swam to her lakeside home in May.

The sentence drew international condemnation, including from Indonesia.

"The long imprisonment seems to be intended for effectively preventing Aung San Suu Kyi from participating in the general elections to be held next year," Faizasyah was quoted by the state-run Antara news agency as saying. (dpa)