Nai Han Thar, the leader of the NCCT said: “We [the NCCT] agreed on a proposal to form a federal army, but the government did not agree to this proposal when we made it at the last meeting. We also proposed to change the Tatmadaw into a federal army but the government said that currently the Tatmadaw is inclusive of all nationalities and is essentially a federal army. We have to find a solution to this problem.”

They also discussed how the government went back on previously made agreements which led to the armed conflicts now happening between ethnic armed groups and government forces in Northern and Southern Shan State according to Nai Han Thar.

He said: “It seems that the government has no interest in a nationwide ceasefire judging by the military attacks in the last week on the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karen National Union Peace Council (KNU/PC), the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP/SSA) at the brigade No.4 area and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).

“All the situations are related, nothing happens in isolation. The government commander in charge of the army has been talking in tougher terms and seems less willing to reach an understanding, the army just wants to force through its proposals. The outcome for the peace talks does not look good. Clashes with the military are increasing which means that the peace talks may fail. If the government continues to try and force through their proposals and if the NCCT refuses to agree to them the government say they will withdraw from the peace talks.”

The commander in chief of the government army accused the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) of using the ceasefire as a time to recruit more soldiers.

The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement disagrees about: the rules both sides should follow under the ceasefire; where troops from each side should be located prior to political dialogue; the continued recruitment of soldiers by ethnic armed groups; which people will participate in the ceasefire agreement and which groups will be involved in political dialogue.

The government side does not accept the ethnic groups’ proposal to discuss the armed forces as part of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement.

The government said that ethnic groups must stop recruiting during the peace process, but the ethnic groups refuse to obey the clause because the government did not discuss it with them and came up with it unilaterally.

The NCCT say that decisions agreed on during the peace process talks should be automatically signed off by parliament. The government refuses to consider this and want parliament to be able to discuss and amend any decisions agreed made at the peace process talks.

Nai Han Tar said: “Solving these political problems should be done outside parliament [at the peace process talks] and the decisions that come out from it should be submitted to parliament because we want to pay respect to parliament. But, they [the army] said that parliament would scrutinize these decisions again which implies that the parliament will control what decisions are made.”

He said that in the last meeting with the government representatives of the Tatmadaw (The Burmese Army) refused to discuss any of the NCCT proposals and were just saying that all of the proposals should be submitted to a higher level.

“Overall the situation is not good, there are more battles to fight. If we look at the overall situation it looks as if the government will only accept a ceasefire agreement where they have the upper hand,” he said.

There was no agreement on a nationwide ceasefire at the last meeting in September. The only agreement that was reached was that all the groups would meet up again in the future.

Representatives from Chin National Front (CNF), the Kokent Group, the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF) and the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) could not attend as members of the NCCT at the meeting.