The Delegation for Political Negotiation (DPN) leader Khoo Oo Reh said that vested interests were not the reason for not yet signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).
DPN is the representative of seven ethnic armed organisations from United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) which are non-signatories to the NCA.
“We are not stopping here. We have time and again said we are determined to explore the solution by various means. We would like to categorically deny the view we are stubborn, having no will for peace and having vested interests in conflict,” Khoo Oo Reh said.
Khoo Oo Reh was speaking at the opening address of the third meeting with the government’s peace team, Peace Commission, led by Dr Tin Myo Win, held at National Reconciliation and Peace Centre (NRPC), Shweli Road, Yangon.
This meeting was attended by 9 members from the government’s peace team and 11 members from DPN and they discussed points in relation to signing the NCA.
“We are exploring ways to make the NCA a comprehensive and concrete agreement when we sign it,” he said.
The main agenda at the meeting of DPN and Peace Commission was to discuss a 9-point proposal submitted by DPN for them to sign the NCA.
DPN’s proposals are a mutual declaration of nationwide ceasefire, building federal democratic union, designating representatives for peace dialogue, forming ceasefire monitoring committee by inclusion of international representatives, and consulting with local people and ethnic armed organizations for implementation of projects which will affect local people in ethnic areas in accordance with practices and procedures of ‘Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Moreover, DPN demanded more pre-conditions for signing the NCA including an agreement on rules and regulations for a ceasefire, code of conduct, Terms of Reference for monitoring the ceasefire and redeployment of troops. DPN said that they would sign the NCA only after meeting these conditions.
The National-level political dialogue is scheduled to be held at the end of November with the eight NCA signatory ethnic armed organisations. According to the NCA framework, only NCA signatory groups are entitled to attend the national-level political dialogue and there will be no national-level political dialogues in states where non-signatory NCA ethnic armed groups operate.