The Karen group has been fighting for greater autonomy for more than 60 years, in a guerrilla campaign in eastern jungles that dates back to before Myanmar’s independence from Britain. It has been the only one of Myanmar’s major ethnic groups never to have reached a peace agreement with the government.
“A cease-fire agreement has been signed,” Aung Min, head of the government’s peace committee, told reporters in the Karen capital Pa-an after the talks.
For decades, Myanmar has been at odds with the ethnic groups who seek greater autonomy, but a military junta that took power in 1988 signed cease-fire agreements with many of them. Some of those pacts were strained as the central government sought to consolidate power, and combat resumed.
Ending war with ethnic rebels is one of the conditions set by the West for improved relations, a point emphasized by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her recent visit to Myanmar.