This video grab released by the Arakan Army shows burning buildings in the headquarters of the army's western command in Ann township, Rakhine state, Myanmar, Dec. 17, 2024.

A powerful ethnic armed group in western Myanmar claimed Friday to have scored a major victory in the war against the ruling military, even as neighboring nations at a meeting in Thailand were discussing efforts to end the conflict peacefully.

The capture by the Arakan Army of a strategically important regional army headquarters in Rakhine state would put it a step closer to seizing control of the entire state, a goal not achieved by any of the several other rebel groups in other parts of Myanmar.

Rakhine has become a focal point for Myanmar’s nationwide civil war, in which pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority armed forces seeking autonomy battle the country’s military rulers, who took power in 2021 after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The apparent fall of the military’s western command headquarters is the latest in a series of significant setbacks for the military government that began more than a year ago when a rebel alliance including the Arakan Army captured military bases, command centers, and strategic towns and cities along the Chinese border in Shan state in northeastern Myanmar.

In August this year, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, another force in the rebel alliance, was the first group to seize a regional command headquarters, in the city of Lashio in the northeast. Myanmar’s military has 14 important regional commands across the country.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press by audio message from an undisclosed location that his group had “completely captured and controlled the entire western regional military headquarters based in Ann township” on Friday at noon.

Most of the township was captured two weeks ago, leaving the headquarters encircled. The headquarters' deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Thaung Tun, and its chief operating officer, Brig. Gen. Kyaw Kyaw Than, were among those taken prisoner, Khaing Thukha said.

The headquarters had overseen operations in Rakhine and the southern part of neighboring Chin state, as well as Myanmar’s territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal.

The military government issued no news about the latest development, which could not be independently confirmed, because access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area is mostly cut off. The Arakan Army in its past official announcements has generally been conservative in its victory claims.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, and seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. In September it launched its effort to capture Ann, about 395 kilometers (245 miles) northwest of Yangon. It began its offensive in Rakhine in November last year, and has now gained control of 13 of 17 townships, along with one in neighboring Chin state.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.

The Arakan Army has made extensive use of social media to document its operations and in recent days has used it to encourage the army's holdouts at the headquarters to surrender.

Separately in Thailand’s capital Bangkok, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met Friday to renew their efforts to help bring peace to Myanmar. The meeting was described as an extended informal consultation.

ASEAN in early 2021 agreed on a “ Five-Point Consensus ” for peace, but the military leadership in Myanmar did virtually nothing to implement it, frustrating the group’s fellow members to the extent they have excluded members of Myanmar’s ruling military from attending their meetings. There were no representatives of Myanmar at Friday’s meeting.

The peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.

The foreign ministers and senior officials attending the Bangkok meeting reaffirmed their backing for the Five-Point Consensus.

Critics have expressed dissatisfaction at ASEAN’s conciliatory approach to Myanmar’s ruling generals. The military government is condemned by many countries and rights organizations for its brutal war and suppression of democracy.

“The principle laid down by ASEAN includes the words to find a Myanmar-owned and -led solution," said Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for Myanmar's opposition National Unity Government, or NUG. “Therefore, it will never get a Myanmar-owned and -led solution by working side by side with the terrorist military group that is not representing the people and killing them every day, instead of dealing with the revolutionary forces, including the NUG, which represents the people of Myanmar."

The NUG operates as a shadow government and stakes a claim to greater legitimacy than the ruling military.

Bryony Lau, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press that “ASEAN has needed to shake up its approach to Myanmar’s crisis."

"But the meetings being held in Bangkok risk legitimizing the junta, which continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with impunity against Myanmar’s people,” Lau said.

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‘Myanmar is under the yoke of a pariah regime’: Calls grow in UK for release of Aung San Suu Kyi from prison

Calls are growing in the UK for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released from prison where she has been held for the last four years by Myanmar’s military regime.

Former foreign ministers Andrew Mitchell and Sir Alan Duncan said her detention meant that the military junta could carry on its human rights abuses on its people.

Ms Suu Kyi – the former democratically elected leader of Myanmar who has become a deeply controversial figure after refusing to speak out against her country’s extreme violence against its Rohingya Muslim minority – is 79 and in poor health.

Mr Mitchell, ex-foreign minister and former deputy foreign secretary, said that “many will condemn” the stance she took over the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and the violence they faced.

But he added: “Locking up the elected leader in such harsh conditions by an illegitimate military cabal is a monstrous repetition of their illegal behaviour and underlines that Myanmar continues to be under the yoke of a pariah regime.”

Ms Suu Kyi’s fall from grace is explored in a new Independent TV documentary, Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, which takes an unbiased look at her life and the plight of Myanmar.

Mr Mitchell described his time working alongside her: “As British development secretary I worked closely with Aung San Suu Kyi – indeed joined her on a remarkable campaigning visit inside Myanmar prior to her democratic victory and undoubted mandate.

“Her current imprisonment in harsh conditions is outrageous and yet further evidence that Myanmar is being ruled by an internationally condemned junta with neither legitimacy nor humanity.”

Sir Alan told The Independent: “She is the one great hope for Myanmar. The world should be campaigning for her to be free in the same way as they did for Nelson Mandela.”

Their intervention comes after three former UK foreign secretaries – William Hague, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Labour’s Jack Straw – all called for her release.

In the documentary, Lord Hague described her as a “political prisoner on trumped up charges” imprisoned because she was a “force for democracy”.

It was possible to be critical of the country’s former leader, “but also say we should be campaigning for her release”, he added.

Many former supporters of Ms Suu Kyi saw an appearance she made at the International Criminal Court in 2019, defending the actions of the military by saying it wasn’t committing acts of genocide, as a betrayal.

Ms Suu Kyi, who studied at Oxford, married British lecturer Michael Aris and raised her young family in the UK before going back to Myanmar in 1988, has been held since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021, a move that plunged the country into conflict.

In the aftermath, she was convicted of offences which ranged from corruption and treason to violations of telecommunications law, which she denies.

In total, she faces 27 years in prison, meaning she could not be released until she is more than 100 years old. Although details of her imprisonment have been conflicting it is thought she has been kept in solitary confinement in a prison in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, since her sentencing.

Sean Turnell, who was sentenced at the same time, has described how his cell was “completely open to rats and spiders, centipedes and these awful black tarantulas”.

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Thailand hosts regional leaders in latest push to end Myanmar conflict

Thailand hosted two regional meetings with Asian leaders this week, aimed at ending a bloody civil war in Myanmar that has led to a spiraling political and security crisis.

China, Bangladesh, Laos, India, and Thailand — the five nations that share a border with Myanmar — met together with members of the country’s ruling military junta to discuss plans for possible peace negotiations.

Members of the ASEAN grouping of Southeast Asian nations also met in Bangkok to discuss plans to resolve the almost five-year conflict and the junta’s plans to hold elections in 2025.

Myanmar has been mired in civil war since Feb 2021, after a military coup toppled the democratically elected government, and the junta has since fought to maintain control against armed resistance groups.

The conflict has displaced millions of people, including Rohingya refugees who have fled across the border into Bangladesh, which has the world’s largest refugee camp. China and Thailand have also condemned reports of widespread human and drug trafficking that have occurred at their borders with Myanmar.

Junta’s election promises are ‘a trap of diplomacy’

Myanmar’s military junta has vowed to hold elections next year, but experts say these promises should be eyed with skepticism. Thailand said this week it had signaled to the junta that any elections should be free and fair, with the country’s foreign minister emphasizing that any vote must be “inclusive” for the whole country, adding that Myanmar’s neighbors would advise but not interfere. Yet the junta’s promises to hold elections should not be trusted, Myanmar expert David Scott Mathieson told Deutsche Welle: “This is a trap of diplomacy. If any interlocutor takes election preparations seriously, they have doomed the country to prolonged conflict.”

Timing could be right for peace talks, and Thailand is key

Myanmar’s military has spent the last couple of years “on the back foot,” Time reported, and experts say the conflict is likely in its endgame, with the junta facing pressure on several fronts. In April, Thailand’s previous prime minister told Reuters he saw an opening for talks, and a recent string of ASEAN summits focused on the conflict suggests a renewed effort by the bloc to reach a peace agreement. Bangkok has a strong incentive to broker a deal: The countries share an almost 1,500-mile border and Thailand has taken on an estimated two million migrants, making it the country most affected by the conflict, outside Myanmar. However, for talks to be beneficial, “Bangkok will need to be more engaged and assertive,” focusing not just on aid but peace and democracy, one veteran Thai journalist told Deutsche Welle.

China changes its approach to the conflict

China has consistently backed both sides in Myanmar’s conflict, with weapons originating in the country held by both the ruling junta and rebel groups, Radio Free Asia wrote — in an attempt to ensure that the Chinese government is always seen favorably. However, Beijing has made a renewed effort to encourage peace talks in light of recent victories by Myanmar’s rebel forces; as it seeks to prevent total regime collapse and protect its economic assets in the country. Two major rebel groups credited China’s mediation efforts when they announced their readiness for peace talks in recent months. However, political analysts told Voice of America that foreign pressure was unlikely to lead to a ceasefire: ”The junta’s refusal to share power remains the primary obstacle,″ one said. “Peace brought about by pressure cannot last long.”

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