YANGON--Donors considering doling out aid to Myanmar's junta must pressure the generals on political reform, as democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest comes up for renewal, her party said Sunday.

Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy, told AFP that while getting aid money for some 2.4 million cyclone survivors was crucial, Myanmar's struggling pro-democracy movement must not be sidelined.

"The junta must be flexible on every subject -- on politics and the victims of the storm," he said, as about 360 foreign government and aid delegates gathered at a hotel in Yangon for a donor conference.

"They should put pressure on them on political issues."

The key political issue, he said, was freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi, who has now spent 12 of the last 18 years locked away at her Yangon home.

The order confining Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, to her home comes up for renewal on Monday, and Nyan Win said that extending that detention would be unlawful.

"She is arrested under the protection law, and according to the protection law the period must be five years and no more," he said.

"She is the national leader, she is the main person to fight for democracy and human rights," Nyan Win added.

Analysts say there is little chance of her being freed, despite the international spotlight currently on Myanmar three weeks after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country leaving more than 133,000 people dead or missing.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the country this week, but told reporters that his mission was "for purely humanitarian grounds," and the detained Nobel peace prize winner could be discussed another time.

Aung San Suu Kyi led the NLD to a landslide election victory in 1990, but the party was never allowed to take office and the junta instead confined her to long periods of house arrest.

Aung San Suu Kyi's latest stint in detention began in May 2003.