The Burmese government has said it doesn’t want to amend the agreed Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) draft and has asked the armed groups’ high-level delegation to keep the proposed amendments as meeting records only.

Union Minister Aung Min spoke to the media after the meeting between government and high-level representatives from ethnic armed groups on 3 July.

“In discussions today, we said that we don’t want to change or erase the NCA. So, we asked to put down the new 12 amendment proposals to come out from the Lawkheela summit as meeting record. We’re not ignoring them,” he said.

The talks would continue in Chiang Mai or Rangoon if the two teams reached some agreement, he said.

Armed ethnic groups representatives decided to amend 15 points in ceasefire agreement draft at the Lawkheela summit in early June. Among them, three points were approved while 12 points continue to be discussed.

Prior to the meeting, the ethnic high-level delegation team said they would like to sign the ceasefire agreement before the elections.

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Deputy leader of ethnic delegation, Pu Zing Cung, said they would confer amongst themselves and reply to government team on Saturday.

“We are going to discuss with government. We haven’t reply or response on what they have said. We will discuss among us tomorrow and hope that we could reply to them.”

The meeting will continue on 4 July.