India-Assam-NSCN Talks

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India-Assam-NSCN Talks

Indian negotiators and an influential tribal separatist group in the

northeastern state of Nagaland are beginning fresh talks in Bangkok

next week aimed at ending India's longest- running insurgency, a

rebel leader Thursday said.

 

"Talks are expected to begin on October 11 or 12 and discuss our

main demand of integrating all Naga inhabited areas in the

northeast," Kraibo Chawang, a senior leader of the Isak-Muivah

faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM),

said.

 

Chawang told IRNA by telephone from Nagaland's commercial hub of

Dimapur that the government's chief peace interlocutor

K.Padmanabhaiah was expected to lead the talks with NSCN-IM leaders

Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah heading the rebel delegation.

 

The NSCN-IM is currently holding peace talks with New Delhi after

the two sides entered into a ceasefire in 1997.

 

New Delhi is also operating a ceasefire with the rival NSCN faction

headed by guerrilla leader S.S.Khaplang since 2001 although formal

talks are yet to begin.

 

Insurgency in Nagaland, bordering Myanmar, dates back to India's

independence from Britain in 1947.

 

The NSCN-IM, the oldest and the most powerful of around 30 rebel

armies in the region, wants the creation of a "Greater Nagaland" by

slicing off parts of the neighbouring states of Assam, Manipur, and

Arunachal Pradesh that has sizable Naga tribal populations.

 

The three regional governments are opposed to compromising on its

territorial integrity.

 

At least 40-rounds of talks were held since the ceasefire with the

NSCN-IM in 1997 with most of the negotiations taking place abroad as

both Swu and Muivah live in self-imposed exile in South Asian cities

since the past 38 years.

 

Ahead of the Bangkok talks, the NSCN-IM warned that the eight-year -

old ceasefire could be under threat if New Delhi fails to bring

about an early settlement.

 

"What is the point in holding peace talks and operating a ceasefire

if there are no positive developments in the dialogues," Chawang

said.

 

"We have lost a big number of our fighters to security forces during

the ceasefire period then what we lost in the non-ceasefire time. So

the ceasefire is being questioned."

He, however, did not give details of the number of rebels killed.

 

On Wednesday,five suspected NSCN-IM militants were killed by police

in an encounter in the neighbouring Meghalaya state.

 

"The militants were involved in a number of robberies and crime and

we are trailing the group for quite sometime before the shootout

took place," Meghalaya police chief W.R. Marbaniang said.

 

Nagaland, where more than 25,000 people have lost their lives to

insurgency since independence, is a majority Christian state of two

million people.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0510068616195858.htm