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After more than five years of fighting, a rare window for talks over Myanmar’s devastating civil war is appearing, driven by a shift on the battlefield where the military has regained ground and mounting regional pressure to engage.
Analysts say the change is most visible in the position of an umbrella body that brings together several major ethnic armed organisations and the shadow government that includes remnants of the last elected administration.
The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) said after a meeting last month with Thai and Philippine foreign ministers, who separately also met with Myanmar’s military negotiation committee, that it is committed to pursuing a political settlement.
Myanmar’s junta chief turned president Min Aung Hlaing has yet to accept the SCEF as a negotiating partner, but his visit this week to Thailand, which is pushing for the gradual re-engagement of the regional ASEAN bloc with its war-torn neighbour, highlights wider efforts for a truce.
“It therefore seems that they have abandoned their previously stated public objective of overthrowing the Tatmadaw,” said Morgan Michaels, research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to the SCEF and the Myanmar military.
