Ethnic armed groups say ASEAN envoy meeting was not dialogue with Myanmar junta

Four ethnic armed organisations that met with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) special envoy on Myanmar earlier this week have denied that the talks were aimed at beginning a political dialogue with the country’s military junta. The four groups, members of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF), were among six that met with ASEAN Special Envoy Maria Theresa P. Lazaro in Pattaya, Thailand, on Monday, a day after separate talks with the regime’s foreign minister in Bangkok. The SCEF, established in March, includes the National Union Government (NUG), the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, and the four allied ethnic armed organisations that attended the meeting—the Kachin Independence Organisation, the Karen National Union, the Chin National Front, and the Karenni National Progressive Party. They were joined by the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army and the New Mon State Party, both signatories to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. NUG officials were not invited to the Thailand meetings, but held a separate videoconference with the ASEAN envoy on Wednesday after the NUG questioned its exclusion from the earlier talks. In a statement issued the same day, the SCEF said its representatives attended the Pattaya meeting solely to exchange views on how to implement ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus and achieve peace and the necessary conditions for a political transition in Myanmar. “The meetings should not be interpreted as the start of a formal political dialogue or negotiation process between the SCEF and the dictatorship,” the group, whose objective is to dismantle military rule and establish a federal democratic union, said. During the online meeting with ASEAN, NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung said the regional bloc’s latest diplomatic efforts risked diverging from previous initiatives involving a broader range of stakeholders. “The current meetings lack connection with the facts and matters that were previously and broadly included,” Zin Mar Aung told Myanmar Now. “There is a risk of deviating from agreed decisions and ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus.” The NUG said ASEAN would gain a more accurate understanding of Myanmar’s political situation if it engaged with SCEF collectively rather than meeting its members separately. Aung San Suu Kyi at the 35th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2019 (Photo: AFP) ASEAN adopted the Five-Point Consensus in April 2021, two months after Myanmar’s military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The plan calls for an immediate end to violence, dialogue among all parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, humanitarian assistance; and meetings between the envoy and all stakeholders. Myanmar’s military regime has faced repeated criticism for failing to implement the agreement, and for continuing to hold Suu Kyi and other senior members of her government in detention. At the Bangkok meeting on July 12, the junta-appointed foreign minister said Suu Kyi was in good health and being cared for, according to participants. The regime has not allowed ASEAN or other international representatives to meet with Suu Kyi since it detained her on the day it seized power in February 2021, except for a visit by Thailand’s then-foreign minister in 2023. The junta has also indicated it may reconsider the Five-Point Consensus, saying Myanmar’s parliament approved a motion on July 9 calling for a review of the framework, which it said do not align with the actual realities of Myanmar. Political analyst Kyaw Ko Ko said he believed ASEAN’s separate meetings with ethnic armed groups did not amount to formal recognition of the SCEF as a unified political entity. “They met each group individually, not SCEF as a whole,” he said. “ASEAN appears to be trying to revive the Five-Point Consensus and create conditions for an inclusive dialogue.” He also said the NUG appeared dissatisfied with being limited to an online meeting while ethnic armed organizations met ASEAN officials in person, describing it as implicit criticism of ASEAN’s continued engagement with Myanmar’s military authorities. Despite the SCEF’s insistence that the meetings were not negotiations, Kyaw Ko Ko said dialogue between the resistance alliance and the military was likely inevitable. “I believe dialogue will happen sooner or later,” he said. “Their approach appears to be, ‘We will continue fighting while also being prepared to talk.’”

Ethnic armed groups say ASEAN envoy meeting was not dialogue with Myanmar junta

The National Unity Government, which is allied with four of the groups that met the envoy on Monday, held separate talks online two days later

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