YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi offered to help negotiate an end to conflicts between the government and ethnic minority groups, a challenge the country's president called essential to building democracy.

Suu Kyi made the offer in a video address to members of her National League for Democracy party on Union Day, which marks when her late father Gen. Aung San signed a 1947 agreement with leaders of the country's ethnic minorities to gain independence from Britain together.

The occasion is a reminder of an issue that has destabilized the country since even before it obtained independence in 1948 under the name of Burma.

Rebellions by ethnic minorities striving for greater autonomy were hard for a democratic parliamentary system to handle, which increased pressure for strong central authority and helped lead to an army takeover in 1962. Military rule persisted until 2011.

The government of elected President Thein Sein has reached cease-fire agreements with most of the major ethnic groups but is still engaged in a bitter struggle with the Kachin in northern Myanmar.

Thein Sein in his Union Day address stressed the importance of "political stability and the end of armed conflicts."

"At present, political stability and the end of armed conflicts is of prime importance for the flourishing of democracy in the country," he said in a speech delivered by Vice President Sai Mauk Kham, a member of the Shan minority.

Suu Kyi said she would take part in peace talks if the parties involved asked her to do so. Continued...