US President Barack Obama has insisted that Burma still has progress to make on reforms, as he becomes the first ever sitting US President to visit the country.

Speaking from Thailand, President Obama told a press conference,

“President Thein Sein is taking steps that move us in a better direction... don’t think anybody’s under any illusion that Burma’s arrived. The country has a long way to go.”

"I'm not somebody who thinks that the United States should stand on the sidelines and not want to get its hands dirty when there's an opportunity for us to encourage the better impulses inside a country,"

"This is not an endorsement if the Burmese government, this is an acknowledgment that there is a process under way inside that country that even a year and a half ago, two years ago, no one foresaw it."

Obama went on to say that no one was "under the illusion that Burma has arrived" and responded to criticism that his visit had come too early, saying,

"If we had waited until they had achieved a perfect democracy, my suspicion is we would be waiting a long time."

His comments come as National Security advisor, Thomas E Donilon spoke on the USA focus on Asia in a speech earlier this week, saying,

"We are not just rebalancing towards Asia. We are also rebalancing our efforts within Asia. We had been heavily invested in North-east Asia for lots of historical and other reasons, but we have really focused here in a renewed way on South East Asia and Asean."