Yangon  - Myanmar's military regime has taken initial steps towards opening an embassy in oil-rich Kuwait as a part of its policy of enhancing diplomatic relations with the Middle East, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.

A high-ranking delegation from the Myanmar Foreign Ministry, led by Deputy Minister Maung Myint, recently visited Kuwait for preliminary discussions on the reciprocal opening of embassies in both countries, according to Yangon-based diplomatic sources.

Myanmar established diplomatic ties with Kuwait on December 16, 1998. Kuwait was the 73rd country to establish diplomatic ties with Myanmar, once known as Burma, since the country won independence from Britain in 1948.

Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah visited Myanmar in August and signed an agreement on economic and technical cooperation between the two countries.

Myanmar has been diplomatically isolated and the target of economic sanctions by the US and the European Union since the military's brutal 1988 crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators that left an estimated 3,000 people dead.

Myanmar has tried to counter-balance its pariah status among Western democracies by strengthening its diplomatic relations with China, Russia, India and now the Middle East.

Myanmar also resumed diplomatic ties with North Korea in April 2007. Relations between the two countries had been severed for 24 years after North Korean assassins in Yangon launched a bomb attack on a high-ranking South Korean delegation of politicians. (dpa)