YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was freed from house arrest on Saturday, setting her on the path to a possible new confrontation with the generals who had kept her out of the public eye for 15 of the past 21 years.

As she stepped to the gate of the lakeside compound where she had been confined, she was greeted by thousands of jubilant supporters, some of them in tears.

Waving and beaming in a long-sleeve pink shirt and a purple sarong, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate could barely be heard over the cheering and chanting.

“We haven’t seen each other for so long, I have so much to tell you,” she said, immediately re-establishing the bond that has made her such a challenge to the nation’s military rulers. It had been more than seven years since her last arrest, a period of near total separation from the world.