Myanmar state counselor calls for continued peace conference

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi said on Wednesday that the national peace conference should be pushed forward.

Speaking at the second day meeting of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) for Ceasefire, Suu Kyi also stressed the need to hold an ethnic conference like the historical Pinlong Conference within one or two months, which is aimed at achieving lasting peace.

The JMC meeting, which began on Tuesday and chaired by Lt. Gen. Yapye from the military, was the first held after the new government took office on April 1.

In January, Myanmar's previous government held the first Union Peace Conference in Nay Pyi Taw, the biggest gathering of political forces in the country in over six decades, involving hundreds of representatives from stakeholder groups of the government, parliament, military and eight ethnic armed groups.

Four proposals were raised to the conference which include exerting effort to finish the national-level political dialogue and convocation of the second union peace conference.

The peace process establishment and negotiated points agreed at the union peace conference were to be handed over to the new government.

The Myanmar government and eight ethnic armed groups signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) on Oct. 15, 2015. After that a union-level JMC for Ceasefire was formed along with a tripartite Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), which was to draft a framework for holding political dialogue as part of the implementation of the NCA.

Under the NCA, the two sides agreed on some post-ceasefire steps and the unfinished peace process includes bringing in seven other ethnic armed groups to the truce signing process. Enditem