Burma Govt Delegation Met With Wa Rebels

8 October 2013

Senior Burmese officials with an ethnic Wa rebel leader last Friday to discuss the peace process and the 2014 national census, state-owned newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reports. Thein Zaw, Vice-Chairman of the Union Peace-making Working Committee and a Union Solidarity Development Party member, and Minister of Electric Power Khin Maung Soe and Commerce Minister Win Myint held talks with United Wa State Army vice-chairman Xiao Mingliang in Pangkham, the capital of Wa Special Region II in northern Shan State. The Burma government maintains a difficult relationship with the powerful Wa rebels, who unilaterally declared an semiautonomous zone in 2009.