Tatmadaw welcomes peace but is also ready for fighting

By Myat Win Kyaw 24 Aug 2019

Myat Win Kyaw | DMG
24 August, Yangon
 
Myanmar’s Tatmadaw welcomes peace but is also ready for more fighting, Major General Soe Naing Oo, chairperson of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team, said in the press conference held at Nay Pyi Taw’s Defence Services Museum on 23 August.

“To put it bluntly about these groups (Northern Alliance), the Tatmadaw welcomes them if they will come to the peace conference. If they want to fight, we are ready for that too,” Maj-Gen Soe Naing Oo said.
 
He added that the extension of the Tatmadaw’s unilateral ceasefire would be based on the acts of the ethnic armed groups. The unilateral ceasefire will expire at the end of August.
 
The Northern Alliance should discuss peace solutions during the time of the ceasefire, instead of recruiting new members and establishing their own territories during that time, he said.
 
The Tatmadaw declared a unilateral ceasefire from 21 December in 2018 to 30 April in 2019 and extended it from 1 May to 30 June and from 1 July to 31 August for the Northern Command, North-East Command, Eastern Command, Central Command and Triangle Region Command.
 
The Northern Alliance’s ethnic armed groups_ the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Arakan Army did coordinated attacks in six locations including a military academy in Pyin Oo Lwin, a military base and a checkpoint in Naung Cho, resulting intensified fighting between the Tatmadaw and the ethnic armed groups.
 
It needs to consider a post-ceasefire landscape of peace if the unilateral ceasefire is not extended in the end of August, General Yawd Serk, acting leader of the Peace Process Steering Team, said in the opening speech of the fourth meeting of the PPST held from 21 to 24 August in Chiang Mai, Thailand.