The UN secretary-general’s recommendation followed the recent peace talks between the Union-level peace team and KIO in the Chinese city of Ruili on Monday. Ban Ki-moon hoped that the joint announcement issued by both sides that outlined a mutually agreed “framework for de-escalation of the violent conflict” would “result in a silencing of the guns in Myanmar for the first time since its independence”.

Despite the UN secretary-general’s wishful thinking sporadic fighting continues unabated throughout Kachin and parts of northwestern Shan states. Recently the army and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) exchanged gunfire for more than 2 hours in the Kutkai district near the Huhpyet to Jahkrai road. In eastern Kachin state government troops attacked a KIA post at Law Hkawng near Chipwe.

Ban Ki-moon's Special Adviser on Burma Vijay Nambiar was in Kachin state earlier this week where he visited internally displaced person (IDP) camps near the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina. Nambiar also met with “civil society groups and other stakeholders”, according to a UN announcement.

Shortly after the visit, a Burma presidential spokesperson issued a statement declaring that the UN and other international aid groups would be allowed to resume aid shipments to non-government controlled areas of Kachin state.

UN relief teams were allowed to make some small relief trips from April until June of last year to IDPs in and around the KIA-controlled Mai Ja Yang but have been prevented since then.