Aizawl: Mizo National Front president Zoramthanga left for Myanmar on Sunday for peace talks with the Myanmar government and ethnic rebel groups.
A statement by Mizo National Front said Zoramthanga will facilitate peace negotiations between Yangon and 17 ethnic rebel groups operating in the neighbouring country.
After leaving the state capital on Sunday, he will leave for Myanmar capital Naypyidaw from Kolkata on Monday.
As per schedule, Zoramthanga will hold talks with Myanmar Minister In-Charge of peace talks with ethnic groups, U Aung Min, during January 13-17. Then he will fly to Bangkok, where he is schedule to meet leaders of different ethnic rebel groups, including Karen National Liberation Army, Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Liberation Army.
Zoramthanga will give report to the Indian Home Ministry in the national apital on the 22nd of this month.
This is a follow-up to a discussion held earlier in October 2014 at New Delhi between Mr Zoramthanga and Dessislava Roussanova, one of the team members of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on brokering peace in the neighbouring Myanmar.
The statement said that Mr Roussanova felt that a former insurgent leader himself, Zoramthanga would be the best person to take up peace initiatives in Myanmar and that time-tested Mizo Accord was eloquent of the importance of the former chief minister.
Zoramthanga and Blair’s representatives agreed to work together to bring long-lasting peace in the trouble-torn Myanmar, the statement said.
It further claimed that Myanmar underground groups had long been insisting on having Zoramthanga as a facilitator of peace between them and the Myanmar government.
But it could not be fulfilled as the Congress-led UPA was in power in India at that time.
“Now, with the NDA taking over, the long-dreamt peace talks are about to be fulfilled with Mr Zoramthanga as mediator,” it said.
Zoramthanga is being accompanied by Mizo National Front General Headquarters Secretary Rosangzuala and an official from Delhi, it added. (UNI)
