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(CNN) -- On the road to democracy, Myanmar has sputtered, and it's time to move forward, said President Obama from the porch of an infamously symbolic home in the country's largest city.

Aung San Suu Kyi had been under house arrest there for 15 years for her democracy activism. But on Friday, now a parliamentarian, she stood side by side with Obama, her fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

She consoled her compatriots that democracy does not come easy and difficulties don't have to be permanent.

He praised democratic progress, particularly an increase in freedom of the press, but then laid his finger in the wounds left by the remnants of military dictatorship and ongoing ethnic tension.

Military dominance

Reform is not complete and can still be reversed, Obama said.

Military rule has officially ended in Myanmar, which democracy activists call Burma, and the country's first multiparty national elections in 2012, the same year that Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to visit the country.

There was much fanfare back then about Myanmar's move towards democracy.

But the military still has a major hold on parliament, and Obama called for Myanmar to move to a strictly civilian government.

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Obama: Myanmar must reform