ICC Note: The civilian leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday calls for more patience and a new strategic vision in Myanmar peace talks. The 21^st-Century Panglong Conference concluded with 14 agreements in principle as agreed by the 700 delegates from different ethnic groups over six days.

07/16/2018 Myanmar (Radio Free Asia) – Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday called for more patience and a new strategic vision to build a peace framework to end decades of civil war pitting the national army against more than a dozen ethnic armies in the Southeast Asian nation.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader and foreign minister, made the appeal after the third round of the 21st-Century Panglong Conference in Naypyidaw concluded with 14 agreements in principle, adding to 37 points of accord reached at the previous peace talks session in May 2017.

“We found that with some points at the conference agreement could be reached, but some could not. All groups participating in the session have different histories and dreams. There are big challenges in this process that require patience and will take time to achieve agreement,” the domestic media outlet Democratic Voice of Burma quoted her as saying the capital Naypyidaw.

“To reach agreement on the security sector is important in the peace-making process because it is essential to become a perfect Union peace agreement,” she added. “To achieve that situation, we need to try by boldly reconsidering our political framework, structure and design.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, speaking in her role as chairwoman of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC), did not elaborate on what a new framework would look like.

Of the 14 basic principles agreed by the 700 delegates over six days, seven covered social issues, four were in the political sector, one involved the economy, and two addressed land matters, local media reports said.

No agreement was reached in the security sector, where the powerful national military and the ethnic militias remain at odds, the reports said.

“Our conference is not stopping, it is not reversing; it is moving forward with great difficulty,” Aung San Suu Kyi was quoted by The Irrawaddy, an online news outlet.

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