YANGON, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar military announced on Friday suspension of all its military action against armed groups in operation areas in five military command regions for over four months starting from Friday until April 30, 2019.
According to an announcement of the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services, during the military's non-operation period, ethnic armed groups in respective operation areas are to negotiate for ceasefire and peace with the National Reconciliation and Peace Center.
The military assumed that during the period, it may also need to negotiate groupwise with all those remaining non-ceasefire signatory armed groups scattered in the northern, northeastern, eastern, middle-eastern and triangle military command areas to sign the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA).
The announcement urged all armed groups to stick to their four-point promise agreed under the military's six-point peace policy and not to take advantage out of the agreements as well as not to create burden on the local people.
The announcement vowed to cooperate for and take care of the repatriation of displaced people, who fled the conflict areas, back to their homes of origin.
The military's announcement came in response to Dec. 12 joint statement of the non-ceasefire signatory Northern Alliance Ethnic Forces, comprising three ethnic armed groups, in which the armed groups voiced support for the government's efforts for national reconciliation and nationwide peace.
The three forces are Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA).
They expressed their desire to join hands with government forces to settle military dispute and political matters through dialogue.
In order to realize peace as early as possible and create a status of peace, the three alliance forces hoped for suspension of military action to pave way for political engagement to achieve national reconciliation and peace.
So far, 10 ethnic armed groups have signed the NCA with the government since it was initiated in October 2015 and the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conferences were held three times during the incumbent government in August 2016, May 2017 and July 2018 respectively.
There remains mainly seven Northern Alliance armed groups which have not yet signed the NCA. Of them, three issued the Dec. 12 joint statement.
