An informal roundtable discussion of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC)’s secretaries was held for two days in Naypyidaw.
The two-day roundtable discussion was held at Mount Pleasant Hotel in Naypyidaw on September 22-23 with support from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).
The government, the parliament, and the Tatmadaw group, the political parties group, and ethnic armed organization group attended the roundtable discussion, according to the UPDJC secretary member U Hla Maung Shwe.
“Each group has five UPDJC secretaries after the national-level political dialogue was held under the NLD administration. The secretaries are busy with their work and they could only talk about work as soon as they sit down so they didn’t have time for brainstorming or retreat within the period of two and a half years. It’s good to hold this rare event,” said U Hla Maung Shwe.
The government, the parliament, and Tatmadaw group held similar discussions from August 29 to 31 and from September 4 to 5 for the upcoming 21st Century Panglong Conference, he continued.
“This is the first time this discussion has been held. We can do brainstorming. We understand how to solve each other's difficulties together. Discussions have been held on how to proceed with the ongoing process but no decision has been set down since it’s a workshop,” said Min Zeyar Oo, member of the UNDJC secretary group.
The government, the parliament, and the Tatmadaw group wants to hold the next Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong (fourth session) in November but ethnic political parties pointed out that the peace conference is unlikely to be held until the year’s end since no official political dialogues have been held up to now.
The nationwide ceasefire agreement signatories – ethnic armed organizations (NCA-S EAOs) have issued a statement to call for a political dialogue between ten leaders from the government, the parliament, and the Tatmadaw and ten leaders of the NCA-S EAOs to discuss future plans for the peace process.
The UPDJC comprises 16 delegates of the government, the parliament, and the Tatmadaw, 16 delegates of political parties that won in the election, and 16 delegates of NCA-S EAOs and five delegates of each group are in the secretary group.
