AFP/Yangon
A senior UN envoy yesterday attended the first talks on home soil between Myanmar’s government and Kachin rebels since a deadly ethnic conflict flared up nearly two years ago, an official said.
The bloodshed in the northern state of Kachin bordering China has - along with sectarian unrest elsewhere in the country - overshadowed widely praised political changes as Myanmar emerges from decades of military rule.
Representatives of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and President Thein Sein’s reformist government met Tuesday in the Kachin state capital Myitkyina for the first time since the conflict resumed, a government official said on condition of anonymity.
Previous rounds of talks had been held across the border in China.
This time UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special adviser on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, also joined the meeting as an observer, the official said, along with representatives of China and other ethnic minorities.