US President Barack Obama has asked the leader of Myanmar's military junta to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Obama, in Singapore for the ASEAN meeting, met with the regime's prime minister in a landmark encounter.

A US president has never met with a leader of the Myanmar junta.

The White House has reported Mr Obama sat with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein to talk about the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

At the official table of Southeast Asian leaders, the Myanmar Prime Minister was only four seats away from Obama.

Ten ASEAN leaders are in Singapore for wide-ranging talks.

At the start of the meeting, the US president told the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that he wants to move forward with an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama has been hoping the US-Russia meeting will set an agenda for further meetings to the successor to the Cold War-era agreement.

Medvedev and Obama agreed in April to reach a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 1 before it expires on December 5th.

In Moscow in July, they also agreed to further cut the number of nuclear warheads each nation possesses.