Myanmar military holds election talks with ethnic rebels

Leaders from the Shan State Progress Party, United Wa State Party and National Democratic Alliance Army are holding three days of talks in capital Naypyidaw

Myanmar's junta is holding talks with three ethnic rebel groups on staging elections in areas they control, a rebel spokesman said Friday, as the military prepares for polls the US has said will be a "sham."

The Southeast Asian country has about 20 ethnic rebel armies that have fought each other and the military for decades over autonomy and control of the drugs trade and natural resources in its borderlands.

Some have condemned the ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi's government when the military staged a February 2021 coup, and offered shelter and weapons training to the "People's Defence Forces" (PDF) that sprung up as resistance against the junta.

Leaders from the Shan State Progress Party, United Wa State Party and National Democratic Alliance Army — which have largely stayed out of the post-coup conflict — are holding three days of talks in capital Naypyidaw, state media said Friday.

The three groups control swathes of territory that have been relatively calm since the coup, which has plunged much of the country into turmoil.

They and the junta discussed on Thursday the "political needs of the groups and... building a Union based on democracy and the federal system", according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.

The military "asked us to let them hold free and fair elections in our area", a spokesman for SSPP, which controls territory in northern Shan state, told AFP.