NAY PYI TAW, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Some 700 representatives including 150 from respective armed groups are expected to participate in Myanmar's upcoming 21st Century Panglong Ethnic Conference, a senior official said here Wednesday.
The exact number of attendees of the Aug.31 meeting will be confirmed at a prior meeting of Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee(UPDJC) in the middle of this month, which will also approve the political framework for the conference, U Kyaw Tint Swe, Minister of the State Counselor's Office, told the session of the parliamentary House of Nationalities.
Other attendees will be from the government, parliament, military, political parties and ethnic groups, he said.
The 18-member UPDJC is made up of representatives of the government, ethnic armed groups and political parties and is headed by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also chairperson of the Central Committee for for Holding the Panglong Conference, has called for continued coordination and cooperation on preparatory work being carried out by the government in order to successfully hold the conference, saying that the Panglong Conference is the first step towards a robust Union.
The announcement for the holding of the Panglong Conference came more than a week after the end of a five-day Ethnic Armed Organizations'(EAOs) Plenary Meeting in Maijayang in Kachin state, controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
That meeting aimed to lay down a common stance in preparation of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference as well as to establish a federal union in the future.
The Maijayang meeting, held from July 26 to 30, was attended by 17 organizations from 21 ethnic armed groups with the absence of four non-ceasefire signatories such as the United Wa State Army, Ta'ang National Liberation Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang).
However, those non-ceasefire signatory armed groups, represented by a delegation of the United Nationalities Federal Council for Political Negotiation, led by its chairman U N'Ban La, have not made clear yet if they will join the Panglong Peace Conference or not, but saying that negotiation on the peace process will continue with the government.
