Armed ethnic groups cannot accept conditions set by Defence Services Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing for a national ceasefire agreement because to do so would amount to a political surrender, the head of the National Ceasefire Coordinating Team, Nai Han Thar, said on April 28.
There was no way that armed ethnic groups could accept the six conditions, which included accepting the 2008 Constitution, Nai Han Thar said in Chiang Mai, where members of the NCCT have been meeting to review the last round of their ceasefire talks with the government’s Union Peace-Working Committee in Yangon in early April.
Nai Han Thar warned that disagreement over the issue would hamper efforts to quickly conclude a ceasefire agreement and said the next round of negotiations between the NCCT and UPWC would not go ahead in the first week of May as planned because the armed ethnic groups needed to re-assess the situation.
He said other obstacles to an agreement included the government side’s refusal to accept a federal system, self-administration for ethnic groups and the use of the term “civil war”.
Such conditions made an agreement impossible because they did not provide for equality between all national groups, Nai Han Thar said.
He said a security framework proposed by the government side after a ceasefire agreement was reached called for the complete take over of the “revolutionary ethnic forces”, which the NCCT could not accept.
