The Karen National Union (KNU) has reaffirmed its commitment to Myanmar’s revolution after former KNU chairman Saw Mutu Say Phoe on Saturday held “peace talks” with regime leader Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw.
Former KNU Central Committee member Saw Roger Khin and an ex-district chair Padoh Shwe Moung also attended the talks.
A KNU statement said it had no involvement in the meeting, saying it was a junta move to sow divisions.
“We resolutely stands together with others who are in the same boat fighting to terminate the dictatorship and will continue to persistently fight,” the KNU statement said.
In August the KNU’s 17th Congress condemned the regime as illegitimate, saying it would not take part in any negotiations with the junta.
The junta announced that Saw Mutu Say Phoe expressed his commitment to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), which he said was a legal agreement that would last forever. He signed the peace deal in October 2015.
An analyst criticized Saw Mutu Say Phoe’s disloyalty to the KNU.
The KNU, founded in 1947, has two armed wings, the Karen National Liberation Army and Karen National Defense Organization.
It has been fighting the regime in Karen and Mon states and Bago and Tanintharyi regions since shortly after the 2021 coup, saying that the NCA was rendered void by the takeover.
The group has sheltered thousands of anti-regime activists, including lawmakers, striking government staff, journalists and artists, fleeing the junta.
It has also provided military training to several thousand recruits who have joined resistance groups and it is stepping up attacks on the regime, including in Naypyitaw, threatening the junta’s seat of power.
KNU is also collaborating with attacks in Magwe and Sagaing regions.
In response, the junta carries out airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling inside KNU territory, killing civilians and destroying schools, hospitals and religious buildings.
