In a major development, the Myanmar junta recently invited some ethnic armed organizations—except those it previously declared as “terrorist groups” -- to attend preliminary peace talks scheduled for Saturday, reports The Irrawaddy.
The offer comes as it struggles to control the country a year after the February2, 2020 coup and faces intensified clashes nationwide with civilian resistance forces and ethnic armed groups allied with them.
Since the power grab, the Southeast Asian nation has been witnessing an increase in deadly battles between its military and organised groups of armed civilians, a latest study revealed.
Conflict monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project says about 12,000 people have been killed in political violence since the coup, with clashes growing alarmingly since August.
Issuing a statement in this regard on Sunday, the junta claimed that achieving enduring peace for the entire nation was a policy that formed part of its roadmap.
“It is necessary to focus on perpetual peace by seeking a solution in negotiations in accord with democratic practices in order to solve the political problems [that have existed] in successive eras,” the regime stated.
However, it also skipped inviting ethnic armed organizations that are signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The junta did the same with the non-NCA signatories.
The junta has declared the parallel civilian National Unity Government (NUG), its parliamentary body the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and it armed wing the People’s Defense Force as terrorist groups.
The NUG is Myanmar’s shadow government set up comprising deposed lawmakers in exile after the coup.
“The regime has already violated the NCA…The military is the main enemy and destroyer of peace, and thus we have nothing to discuss with them,” said Padoh Saw Taw Nee, head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Karen National Union, one of the major ethnic armed groups of Myanmar and an NCA signatory.
Meanwhile spokespersons from the Arakan Army (AA), Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Shan State Progress Party (SSPP) said they had not yet received the invitation.
26 regime troops killed in Sagaing, Kayah
Twenty-six junta soldiers and a resistance fighter were killed during clashes with the People’s Defense Force (PDF) in Sagaing region and Kayah state on Monday.
Kalay-PDF claimed to have killed at total of 17 soldiers when it conducted a series of ambushes against a military convoy in the Kale township of Sagaingr region on.
The resistance fighter, who was from the Chin National Defense Force (CNDF), died by the regime’s heavy explosives following one of the ambushes.
Meanwhile, nine troops were killed during two firefights with a combined force of fighters from the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) and the Karen Army—the armed wing of the Karenni National Progressive Party—in Loikaw township of Kayah.
