Myanmar armed groups rebuff junta’s coop appeal

AFP :

Myanmar’s ruling junta on Saturday made a rare call for the armed groups it is fighting to cooperate with it ahead of a slated election, an invitation anti-coup forces swiftly rejected.
The unexpected appeal comes as the junta continues to suffer major battlefield reverses to ethnic minority armed groups and pro-democracy “People’s Defence Forces” (PDF) that rose up to oppose its seizure of power in 2021.
“If the armed groups… choose to legally establish themselves within the framework of the law and cooperate hand in hand with the government… the government will welcome and accept this,” the military said in a statement published by junta media The Global New Light of Myanmar.
The National Unity Government, a body dominated by ousted lawmakers working to reverse the coup, said the junta announcement was “a strategy filled with deception aimed at legitimizing their power-consolidating sham election and attempting to divide and weaken” its opponents.