YANGON - Myanmar's president had a landmark meeting on Saturday with one of the country's biggest ethnic rebel groups, a mediator said, marking one of the biggest steps taken by a government seeking "everlasting peace" after decades of hostilities. Thein Sein, a former infantry commander and heavyweight in the junta that ceded power a year ago, told a visiting delegation of the Karen National Union (KNU) that his government viewed the rebels as brothers rather than enemy with whom the army had fought since 1949. The meeting in the capital Naypyitaw was the first time the reform-minded president had met rebel leaders since he issued a call for dialogue last August, embarking on a three-phase peace process with more than a dozen groups aimed at bringing them into Myanmar's new political system. "The president explained his change of attitude towards ethnic armed groups," a mediator who attended the meeting told Reuters by telephone, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media. "He told them he considered ethnic armed groups as enemies when he was a soldier but after becoming president, he considers them as ethnic brethren." Peace with the militias has been demanded by Western nations now reviewing economic and political sanctions. Thein Sein's meeting comes after an historic by-election on Sunday won by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
