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“The military government wants to negotiate from a position of strength but we will not succumb to such pressure.”
Arakan Army and United League of Arakan chief Twan Mrat Naing gives an interview to Rajeev Bhattacharyya (left) at an undisclosed location somewhere in Myanmar’s Arakan region, on March 2, 2026.
The Arakan Army (AA) and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), are among the largest revolutionary organizations in Myanmar currently battling the government. Seventeen years after it was formed in 2009, the AA controls almost 90 percent of Arakan, the narrow coastal region on the Bay of Bengal in the western region of Myanmar. That is arguably the largest area to be liberated so far by any armed outfit in the country. Arakan has been in the limelight since the 1970s because of the military operations that have been conducted by the government against Rohingya Muslims in the region.
Twan Mrat Naing, who heads the AA and the ULA, has given online interviews to media outlets in the past, but never a one-on-one interview to a foreign correspondent. In a first, he met The Diplomat’s correspondent Rajeev Bhattacharyya at a location somewhere in Myanmar’s Arakan region on March 2. For this correspondent, reaching the meeting spot entailed a long journey by road and river, and a trek through jungle and hilly terrain.
