An ethnic armed group in western Myanmar claims to have captured a major regional army headquarters

BANGKOK — 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.