BD rebel group offers peace talks

DHAKA: A rebel group in Bangladesh has offered to hold peace talks, officials said on Monday, raising hopes for an end to 25 years of violence that has killed hundreds of people.

In 1997 the main rebel outfit in the restive Chittagong Hill Tracts region in southeast Bangladesh, the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS), signed a peace deal and laid down its arms. But a splinter group of younger rebels in the mainly Buddhist region that is home to several ethnic tribal groups, the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), rejected the agreement. The deal failed to address key issues such as autonomy for the region and the presence of thousands of government troops and Bengali settlers, it said.