Rebel groups have rejected a peace offer from Myanmar’s embattled junta, which is reeling from battlefield losses and defections in a civil war that has dragged on for more than three years. This is dictatorship's first such outreach since it seized power in 2021.

Myanmar’s generals are asking ethnic armed groups to take part in peace talks and elections in an attempt to stem losses from a simmering conflict that erupted after a military coup in 2021.

Myanmar's embattled junta on Thursday invited armed groups opposed to its rule to stop fighting and start talks to bring peace, after three-and-a-half years of conflict."We invite ethnic armed groups,

Ye Myo Hein, a senior expert on Myanmar at the United States Institute of Peace, said the military's call to cease fighting, made public in a statement Thursday, was aimed to appease China. "The SAC [State Administration Council] is making overtures to Beijing,