The government’s Peace Commission has cancelled an informal meeting with the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), which was scheduled for May 12, according to the KNPP.
Nal Nae Palo, spokesperson of the KNPP’s Peace Dialogue Committee, said the Peace Commission cancelled the meeting after the KNPP responded to their offer to hold the meeting by asking for clarification on the contents of the letter.
“I don’t know whether our response wasn’t reasonable for them or it was misunderstood? They cancelled the informal meeting, which has been proposed by them. So, you can’t say that the KNPP couldn’t accept them,” said Nal Nae Palo.
According to the spokesperson, the KNPP did not refuse to meet with the Peace Commission and it has only asked for clarification on the letter.
“The KNPP has no reason to cancel this meeting. We were only at the stage of asking for clarification on the letter. The government cancelled the meeting by saying that it was unreasonable,” said Nal Nae Palo.
After the Peace Commission offered to meet with the KNPP in Mae Hong Son Province in Thailand on either May 11 or May 12, the commission’s chairman U Khin Zaw Oo informed the KNPP on May 9 that they will not be coming as the meeting was unreasonable.
Even if the Peace Commission meets with the KNPP, it can only meet with the Peace Dialogue Committee, which has been established by the KNPP, according to Nal Nae Palo.
The KNPP said it maintains regular contacts with the Peace Commission despite the cancellation of the meeting.
Nal Nae Palo explained that the KNPP will only sign the NCA after the contents of the union-level and state-level ceasefire agreements with the government have been implemented and trust has been built.
“There are challenges in the implementation [process] after the signing of the NCA. We see that there are many challenges in monitoring, prevention against another outbreak of skirmishes, political dialogues and public meetings. If we can have guarantees for building more trust on these issues and implementing them without a hitch, we believe there may be some form of relaxations in these challenges,” Nal Nae Palo added.
The KNPP and the Peace Commission met at the State Hall in Loikaw, Kayah (Karenni State) on April 26 and discussed about continuing the implementations of the bilateral agreements that have been signed on the state-level and union-level. They also released a three-point joint statement including the point on continuing the negotiation for the signing of the NCA.
