Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party on Tuesday invited ethnic minority groups that support Myanmar's ruling junta to meet at its headquarters for talks on resolving their differences.
The rare gesture by the National League for Democracy (NLD) came less than a week after party leaders were allowed to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi in November had released a statement through visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, calling for national unity and saying she had a particular duty to consider the opinions of Myanmar's dozens of ethnic minority groups.
Many of the country's ethnic groups have waged armed struggles for decades against the junta, seeking autonomy for their peoples. Some of the groups that have signed cease-fires and aligned themselves with the military government issued statements in state media saying that Aung San Suu Kyi had no right to speak on their behalf.
In a statement Tuesday, the NLD invited those groups to gather at the party's headquarters to work on resolving their differences. "The NLD invites those ethnic national parties and organisations who had different views on the statement (by Aung San Suu Kyi) to come and discuss their opinions at the NLD headquarters in Yangon," it said.
Aung San Suu Kyi "has said dutifully and faithfully that the NLD is focused on the welfare of all ethnic nationalities and the union (of Myanmar) as a whole," the statement said. "The NLD understands that their freely made opinions and denunciations are part of democratic practise. Likewise, bilateral discussion is the essence of democracy," it said. Last week Aung San Suu Kyi also called for tripartite talks bringing together the NLD, the junta and the ethnic minorities. The NLD won a landslide election victory in 1990, but the junta never allowed it to take office.
The military opened talks with Aung San Suu Kyi in the wake of a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September, but so far little visible progress has been made. Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.