The country’s shadow government welcomes efforts by Asean chair Indonesia to kickstart peace talks in the strife-torn South-East Asian nation but is deeply distrustful of the junta that took power in a 2021 coup, a spokesperson said.
“The biggest obstacle to peace talks is the military junta,” said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for Myanmar’s shadow administration, known as the National Unity Government.
He said the junta was trying to mislead the international community, pointing to its failure to implement a five-point peace “consensus” agreed by its top general with Asean months after the coup sparked widespread unrest.
“The junta never keeps its promises,” Kyaw Zaw added.
The 2021 coup, which ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, upended a decade of tentative democratic reform.
A junta-controlled newspaper, the Global New Light of Myanmar, carried a statement inviting resistance fighters to return to the “legal fold” and offering cash rewards to those who brought back weapons.
For months, Indonesia has been quietly engaging key stakeholders in Myanmar’s conflict, besides neighbours China, India and Thailand, in an effort to revive the peace process. — Reuters
