The Arakan Patriot Party (APP) announced this week that it won’t attend the upcoming Union Peace Conference (also called 21st Century Peace Conference) if all the ethnic armed groups can’t attend.
APP chairperson U Zaw Win Tun said: “We welcome the 21st Century Panglong Conference because it is aimed towards peace and the establishment of a federal (union). But, if all ethnic armed groups are not allowed to attend the conference this contradicts the all-inclusive policy so we won’t attend.”
The government recently announced that the conference would be all-inclusive but is still blocking three armed groups—Ta’ang Nationalities Liberation Army, Arakan Army and Kokang’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army—unless they issue a statement that they will disarm.
When asked if the APP has been invited to the peace conference since the political party failed to secure a seat in the 2015 election, Zaw Win Tun replied that the party has been invited by the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre for today’s discussions with the other political parties, but that they didn’t attend it.
“We believe there won’t be a peace conference if all ethnic armed groups are not allowed to participate,” Zaw Win Tun said.
United Nationalities Federal Council General Secretary U Khu Oo Reh told media this Monday that he hopes the Burmese government will decide to invite the excluded groups.
Eighteen out of twenty-one armed groups have confirmed that they will join the peace conference scheduled to start on 31 August in capital Naypyidaw.
Reporting by Narinjara News
Translated by Thida Linn
Edited by BNI staff
