‘Fighting continues in northern Myanmar’

Bangkok: Reports from Myanmar said there was continuing fighting on Friday in the northeast of the country between the military government and an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups, even after China announced that the two sides had reached agreement on a cease-fire at meetings it had brokered.

Clashes have been raging in the northern part of Myanmar’s Shan state since October 27, when the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, branding themselves the Three Brotherhood Alliance, launched a coordinated offensive. MeKong News, an online news site reporting from the Shan state, said on its Facebook page that the army was carrying out air strikes and firing heavy weapons Friday morning in the area around 105-Mile Trade Zone in Muse, a major city that is a border crossing point with China. The report said that according to town residents, the Three Brotherhood Alliance forces had occupied a strategic hill near the trade zone on Thursday evening after heavy fighting.

Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson of the ruling military council, was quoted in the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper on Friday as saying that there was fighting in the areas between Namhkam township and the 105-Mile Trade Zone in Muse, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to its east.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning had said Thursday on the sidelines of a news conference in Beijing that China had acted as a mediator for a cease-fire between the army and the alliance, and that there had been a notable de-escalation of fighting in the area near the border with China.

She said China has provided support and facilitation for dialogue and the meetings had “reached

agreement on a number of arrangements, including the temporary cease-fire and maintaining the momentum of dialogue.”