Insofar as the Union government’s agenda for ethnic reconciliation is concerned, there is little doubt that the north, where the most powerful rebel armies operate, holds the key to a permanent negotiated settlement.

The Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee released a statement on Thursday conveying the ethnic armed bloc’s intention to join the next iteration of the government’s 21st Century Panglong Conference if its members are officially invited to do so.

A major member of the United Nationalities Federal Council, the Shan State Progressive Party, has submitted a resignation letter to the council, with the ethnic armed group on Sunday revealing its plans to leave the coalition.

The government Peace Commission is preparing to meet “soon” with members of a recently formed alliance of ethnic armed groups based largely in Burma’s north, an apparent signal that the new coalition is increasingly viewed as an important factor in the peace process calculus.

The dwindling alliance of ethnic armed groups joined under the United Nationalities Federal Council banner convenes a conference in Thailand chaired by a leader of one of its former members, the influential Kachin Independence Army.

Peace in Burma “is starting to take tangible form for the first time,” Aung San Suu Kyi said in upbeat closing remarks at the second iteration of the 21st Century Panglong Conference.