30 July

The final day of 6th coordination meeting between government representatives and ethnic armed organizations that have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA-S EAOs) was held at the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre (NRPC) on Shweli Road in Yangon yesterday evening.

The meeting focused on organizing the 4th session of the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong, as decided during the 8th JICM meeting, and working towards signing Part 3 of the Union Accord. After the meeting, Director-General U Zaw Htay of the Ministry of Office of State Counsellor and NCA-S EAOs representative Nai Aung Ma Ngay held a press conference.

U Zaw Htay said while this meeting was held for one more day than the planned 3-day meeting, as all members need to discuss within their organizations, the meeting resulted in a wide range of agreements. He said they discussed the three parts to the Union Accord’s Part 3 the first part containing 13 implementation framework agreements for the NCA. He said there are 3 points left to be discussed, although they are not too different from one another, and detailed discussions are likely to make it successful.

U Zaw Htay said the second part concerned successive processes and implementations beyond 2020. He said the second part is separated into two categories. The first category has 8 topics that have all been agreed upon. He said the second category includes sub-topics that go into greater detail and one of them was about security unification. This was divided into three stages in the discussions with EAOs and successfully negotiating all of them would mean completion of a portion of the second category.

U Zaw Htay said the third part was about the guiding fundamentals for establishing a Democratic Federal Union. He said they are discussing 8 points on that matter with 2 in agreement and 6 remaining. He said they have mostly agreed on the other points but they require additional discussion as they are linked to other points as well. He said they may finish discussing them in the next meeting. U Zaw Htay said they will meet in Nay Pyi Taw on 1 August after this 6th meeting and conduct preliminary meetings for JICM and the main meeting as well. He said they will organize the UPDJC meeting from there and head towards the peace conference. Next, Nai Aung Ma Ngay said this is the first face-to-face meeting since numerous online meetings held to curb the spread of COVID-19. He said the first part only had 3 points left to discuss just as U Zaw Htay had mentioned and the second part only had the second table left to discuss, involving security unification, as well. He said the third part had 8 points with 2 in agreement and 6 remaining but since they are all interrelated the discussion is not over yet. He said he expects good results after the discussions scheduled for 1 August in Nay Pyi Taw. Journalists then asked about the fourth session of the UPC scheduled for the second week of August.

Invitations to conference

U Zaw Htay replied that they have not invited anyone yet in response to a question on whether EAOs that have not signed the NCA will be invited to the peace conference. 

However, he said they plan to invite the non-signatories in addition to political parties and diplomats. He said the Ministry of Information has issued rules and regulations for journalists wishing to attend.

U Zaw Htay said they will not be inviting observers as a precaution to COVID-19 and the peace conference will also be held separately in MICC-I and MICC-II. He said the JICM and UPDJC meetings will be held in MICC-I while the opening ceremony will be held in MICC-II. He said every attending party will only have a third of the usual number allowed to attend the peace conference due to social distancing requirements during COVID-19.

Attendees from international organizations

U Zaw Htay said since the suspension of airlines are in place, the invited persons have to attend the conference themselves as it would be difficult for people to attend from abroad.

He said they will not have people coming in instead of the invited and will only have the most essential people accompanying diplomats. Attendees will also have to take swab tests and stay at the designated hotels. Nai Aung Ma Ngay then said they also wish to invite the non-signatories to the NCA and they have talked about this with the Union Government. Whether or not they actually attend is left to the non-signatories.

Ye Gaung Nyunt (Translated by Zaw Htet Oo)