The Karen National Union is always looking for an opportunity to solve the conflict by political means. Because of this basic principle we have engaged in 5 previous ceasefire talks that have broken. These ceasefire talks failed because the successive governments did not respond by political means to the negotiations.
After the new Burmese/Myanmar government established its office, President U Thein Sein on 30 March 2011 stated in his inaugural speech that he wanted to build national unity by addressing the decades of armed conflict with the ethnic nationalities. This was then followed up on 18th August 2011 with an announced for peace talks. Four months later, the KNU held an emergency CSC meeting on 8-11 November 2011 to discuss this invitation to peace talks and it was during that meeting that the KNU decided to join the peace process. At the emergency CSC meeting a 7 members Peace Building Committee was formed, whose mandate was to handle the peace process and respond to the Governments announcement and call for peace talks. The committee consisted of:
See below the Summary of Preliminary Ceasefire Talk