Myanmar has been mired in a civil war since the military grabbed power in a 2021 coup, with the junta fighting an array of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic minority armed groups.
The ragtag opposition initially struggled to make headway before organising a combined offensive in late 2023 that seized huge swaths of territory.
The northern ruby-mining town of Mogok was captured by rebels last summer, but the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) -- the most powerful group driving that offensive -- said it will now pull out.
The TNLA said in a statement on Telegram it had made a deal with the junta after two days of talks that ended on Tuesday, overseen by a Chinese special envoy in the city of Kunming in southern China.
According to the deal, the group will pull out of the townships of Mogok and neighbouring Momeik.
The statement did not specify a timeframe but said the military had agreed to call off air strikes, while "troops from both sides will stop advancing" from midnight on Wednesday.
A Myanmar junta spokesman could not be reached for comment.
China is a key power broker in Myanmar's civil war, analysts say, supporting both opposition groups and the junta on a sliding scale according to its economic and security interests.
Some conflict monitors say the offensive during which Mogok was captured had at least Beijing's tacit backing, as China grew weary of the junta's inaction over internet scam centres that seed chaos along their border.
However, China has more openly backed the junta this year as it battles to regain ground ahead of an election scheduled to start in December, which it is touting as a path to stability.
The polls are set to be blocked from vast rebel-held enclaves, and numerous international monitors have dismissed them as a ploy to disguise continuing military rule.
However, Beijing has given its backing in diplomatic rhetoric and on the ground.
The northern city of Lashio -- the junta's most significant territorial loss since the start of the civil war -- was handed back to the military in April after Chinese mediation.
Campaigning begins in Myanmar's junta-run election
Yangon (AFP) Oct 28, 2025 -
Parties approved to participate in Myanmar's junta-organised elections are set to start campaigning Tuesday, two months ahead of a poll being shunned at home and abroad as a ploy to legitimise military rule.
Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, deposing and jailing democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi after her party won the last election by wide margins.
The junta has lost swaths of the country to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic-minority armed factions, but has touted elections as a path to reconciliation.
Rebels have pledged to boycott the vote in huge enclaves they control, while human rights groups and a UN expert have denounced the poll's restrictive conditions in junta-held zones.
"This election means nothing to me," said one 60-year-old man in Sittwe city, the capital of western Rakhine state. "It is not a genuine election and I see no one supporting it."
"People are struggling with their own problems," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons in a region where fighting has triggered a humanitarian crisis.
"I see more and more beggars in town as people are starving. People have no jobs and so the election seems like a distant prospect. They have no time to be interested in it."
There will be 57 parties on the ballot when polls take place in phases beginning on December 28.
Suu Kyi's vastly popular National League for Democracy -- which won 82 percent of elected seats in the last poll in 2020 -- will not be among them because the junta dissolved the party after jailing her and making unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.
At the deserted NLD headquarters in Yangon on Tuesday morning, the gate was locked, and there was no visible campaigning in downtown streets or other public areas, an AFP journalist saw.
- 'Not very interested' -
The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) began its campaign by unveiling election billboards in the capital Naypyidaw, where voting will be held in most constituencies in the first phase of the election.
Several thousand USDP members and supporters attended a campaign kick-off event in the city, including retired generals and USDP candidates Mya Tun Oo and Tin Aung San, both current ministers under US sanctions.
However campaigning is expected to be generally low-key with high security amid the civil war.
"It is unlikely I will go for voting and I have no idea if I am on the voter list," said one civilian displaced by fighting to the central city of Mandalay, speaking anonymously for security reasons.
"We are not very interested," he added. "We just want to go home."
In Yangon, about 300 USDP supporters dressed in green and white shirts and hats gathered at the party office, an AFP journalist saw.
Red and green party flags lined the street, with around a dozen armed soldiers and police patrolling the area.
Khin Maung Soe, Yangon regional chairman of the USDP, said his party planned to campaign in townships the Union Election Commission had designated and where security could be ensured, like Yangon -- but no further campaign activities were scheduled for Tuesday.
"We will start campaigning another day," he said, adding that "there won't be any parading on the street".
The junta has conceded elections will not take place in one in seven national parliament constituencies, many of them active war zones, while martial law remains in place in one in five townships.
The military government also has introduced laws punishing those who protest against the election with up to a decade in prison, and new cybercrime laws police the internet for communications that "disrupt unity".
Diplomatic sources told AFP on Monday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will not send election observers to Myanmar.
Numerous rights groups lobbied the 11-nation bloc to hold back monitors, lest they lend legitimacy to a vote which they say will be neither free nor fair.
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