RCSS Offers Peace-talks
By Network Media Group
Monday, October 17, 2022
The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) wants to meet with the other ethnic armed organisations for peace-talks to build trust and work towards building a federal union in Burma, the group claimed in a recent statement.
RCSS spokesperson Lt Col Oum Khur said: “We want to solve all political problems in our Shan State because our people have suffered a lot, and our second goal is to build a federal union.”
The armed group, which has been fighting with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Shan State Progress Party for years, hopes to start the talks anytime from now until 10 February 2023. The idea is to first meet with the other groups in Shan State and then with the other groups from across the country.
Oum Khur claims it has nothing to do with the military regime. However, the group’s leadership recently returned from Naypyidaw, where they met with coup leader Min Aung Hlaing for the second session of the so-called peace talks, which have been boycotted by most groups fighting the regime.
Pa’O National Liberation Organisation patron leader Col Khun Okker has welcomed RCSS’s offer. “Discussions are much better than fighting… this means they want to reduce conflict,” he told NMG.
After the RCSS signed 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government it escalated its military activities in northern Shan State, leading to war with the TNLA and eventually SSPP.
Following last year’s coup, the RCSS withdrew most of its troops from the north after months of heavy fighting between the groups.
