, on paper only, to ink the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).
The government’s Union Peace-making Work Committee (UPWC) and a new team of ethnic negotiators, the Senior Delegation for Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (SD) met on July 3-4, in Chiang Mai, northern City of Thailand. At the meeting, an agreement to restart the stalled ceasefire talks and to sign the NCA was made, albeit on paper, according the statement released at the meeting.
From July 2 to 5, the ethnic armed groups’ new negotiating bloc, the Senior Delegation for the NCA, held a conference for the second time, in Chiang Mai, northern City of Thailand. Of the four days in Chang Mai, the Senior Delegation for NCA (SD) had two days of informal meetings with the UPWC.
“There will be another meeting concerned with the NCA inking in the third week of July, in Rangoon,” said U Hla Maung Shwe, senior advisor of Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) in an interview with IMNA.
U Hla Maung Shwe continued that such an agreement was only made with positive intentions, and the agreement would be confirmed at the upcoming talk to be held in Rangoon.
Pu Zing Cung, the deputy leader of the ethnic negotiating bloc, said at the meeting’s press conference, that the meeting [with UPWC] was successful with constructive intentions, for the achievement of peace work.
However, U Aung Min, the government’s chief negotiator [UPWC], said that the Tatmadaw [the army] would not accept the 12 points requested by the ethnic leaders at Law Khee Lar summit, including to omit the phrase “in accordance with the law” at Chapter (3)’s clause (9) – (h) and to fix “security related matters” at Chapter (5)’s clause (20) ( c ).
The 12 [amendments] points for the NCA draft amendment and 9 points [ of decisions]made by the ethnic armed groups presented at the recent summit at Law Khee Lar, Karen state, were already submitted to the government.
The Senior Delegation for NCA (SD) was formed in the first week of June, at ethnic armed organizations’ summit at Law Khee Lar, Karen State, in order to further discuss and finalize the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement text. 15 members, including Naw Zipporah Sein as the leader of the new negotiating bloc, were appointed as delegates of the Senior Delegation For NCA (SD).
