“We have reached the agreement on principle to establish the federal union which secures the democracy, equality of nationality and rights to determination through political dialogue according to the policy. This is a positive point as it is also the case what ethnic people always demand,” Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo said.

The government’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UMPC) and the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) reached the agreement during the first day of Nationwide Ceasefire Draft meeting held at the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) headquarters in Yangon.

The NCCT leader, Nai Hong Sar, cautioned at the conference that although an agreement had been made with the government, many issues remained unsolved. Nai Hong Sar pointed out that both parties had so far discussed only Chapter’s 1 and 2 of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement Draft and the remaining chapters had yet to be discussed in detail.

Dr. Lian Sakhong, an advisor for the NCCT, said that the ethnic groups would accept the three main ‘national causes’ emphasized by the government, if they honoured the agreement regarding a federal union based on democracy, equal rights and self-determination of ethnic minorities.

The three national causes emphasized by the government are: (1) Non-disintegration of the Union, (2) Non-disintegration of National Solidarity, (3) Consolidation of National Sovereignty as the starting point to end the country’s six-decade long civil war.

The meeting between UPWC and the NCCT is being held from August 16 to 18 to discuss on the ‘single text’ nationwide ceasefire agreement.