The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), which is likely to be invited as an observer, said it has not decided on attending the upcoming 21st Century Panglong Conference.
The Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) has decided to hold the conference for six days from July 11 to 16.
The KNPP’s liaison officer (Loikaw) Khu Nyay Reh told the Kantarawaddy Times that the decision will be known after the central committee meeting is held.
“All the central committee [members] need to meet in order to make a decision. We will get the majority’s decision. If the majority agrees to attend it, we will attend it. If they don’t agree to it, we won’t attend it,” he said.
He added that the central committee meeting will be held in the first week of July.
The meeting of the UPDJC secretary group had been delayed four times due to problems in the negotiations between the government, the Tatmadaw, and the ethnic armed organizations that are signatories of the nationwide ceasefire agreement. The meeting was eventually held in Naypyidaw on June 25 and the date for the conference has been set down.
The UPDJC secretary group comprises a group representing the government, the hluttaw, and the Tatmadaw, and two groups representing political parties and ethnic armed organizations respectively.
The Union Peace Conference was first held under the previous administration in January 2016 in accordance with the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).
The existing administration renamed it as the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong Conference and held the first session at the end of August in 2016 and the second session in May 2017.
Thirty-seven points from the political, economic, social, and land and resources sectors were approved during the second session of the 21st Century Panglong Conference in May 2017.
The third session of the 21st Century Panglong Conference was originally scheduled to start in December 2017, six months after the second session, but it was postponed to January 2018.
Afterwards, the conference was postponed from January to the end of April or early May and then further postponed to the end of May.
The government and the EAOs negotiated about holding the conference from June 30 to July 4 during the political sector informal talk held at the end of May, but it was postponed to the second week of July since the EAOs were not ready.
