Uncertainty over prospects for signing a national ceasefire agreement before the election has risen following a decision on the agenda for a meeting at the Myanmar Peace Center in Yangon on October 3.
The meeting will set a date for signing the agreement despite negotiators previously agreeing that it would be inked in the first week of October, the Independent Mon News Agency said in a Burma News International report on September 23.
The decision to discuss the date for a signing on October 3 came at a meeting of eight ethnic armed group representatives and members of the government’s Union Peace-making Work Committee at the centre on September 30, the report said.
The MPC’s U Nyo Ohn Myint said the date for signing the NCA would be decided at the “preliminary meeting” on October 3, said the IMNA, one of nine members of the BNI network.
It said the eight groups represented at the September 20 meeting included the Karen National Union, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council, the Pa-O National Liberation Organization, the Shan State Progressive Party and the All-Burma Students Democratic Front.
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Noticeable by their absence at the September 20 meeting were representatives of the three of the most important armed ethnic groups, the Kachin Independence Army, the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army-South and the New Mon State Party.
Armed ethnic groups were to meet at Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for three days of talks on the national ceasefire due to end on September 30.
