The Shan armed group participates in informal peace talks with the Burma Army’s negotiation team in Naypyidaw.

Representatives of the Burma Army and the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) participated in informal peace talks in Naypyidaw on Monday.

An SSPP/SSA delegation headed by vice chairperson Maj-Gen Khun Seng and the Tatmadaw’s Negotiation Team, led by Lt-Gen Yar Pyae, met at 9:00 a.m. and agreed to hold monthly talks in order to build trust, according to those present.

Maj Sai Phong Harn, an SSPP/SSA representative who attended the meeting, told SHAN that the Tatmadaw read their own statements released in December and January and “explained what they wanted to do.”

“We discussed how political equality, self-determination and other issues agreed in the 1947 Panglong Agreement must be solved ahead of other issues,” he said. “Ethnic people still haven’t gotten these things. Consecutive governments have not been able to solve the core political problems in Burma. That is why ethnic people have started armed struggles. The government has tried to solve political problems through military means for over 70 years.”

Maj Sai Phong Harn explained that the way forward in ending Burma’s war is to “solve political problems through political means” and that the root of the country’s problems is the failure by its leadership to implement and adhere to the promises of the Panglong Agreement.

The SSPP/SSA also reportedly discussed issues it sees as obstacles to participating in Burma’s peace process and Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The organization also called for the release of 17 of their soldiers from Burmese prisons.

Representatives of the SSPP/SSA met with a delegation from the government’s National Reconciliation and Peace Center on February 22.

The SSPP/SSA signed both state- and Union-level ceasefire agreements with the Burmese military in 2012. The group is not a signatory to the NCA.