New Delhi govt to hold talks two N-E rebel groups separately
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Guwahati, India, June 21 -- India's federal government will hold separate peace talks with representatives of two powerful northeastern rebel groups Thursday aimed at ending decades of bloodshed in the region, officials Wednesday said.
An Indian Home Ministry official said government negotiators will holds talks with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) separately.
"Talks with the NSCN-IM leaderships will take place in Amsterdam, while ULFA representatives will be meeting government emissaries led by Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi," the official who wished not to be identified said by telephone.
The official said Federal Minister Oscar Fernandes and New Delhi's Chief Peace Interlocutor K. Padmanabhaiah will lead the government team in talks with the NSCN-IM led by guerrilla leaders Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah in Amsterdam.
"Our leader Muivah accompanied by seven to eight other senior functionaries will be attending the talks," senior NSCN-IM leader Karibo Chawang told IRNA by telephone from Nagaland's commercial hub Dimapur.
The NSCN-IM have been struggling for nearly six decades to integrate Naga-inhabited areas by slicing off parts of three neighboring states to add to the mountainous Nagaland state.
The demand for merger that would unite 1.2 million Nagas has been strongly opposed by the neighboring states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
The NSCN-IM and New Delhi entered into a ceasefire in August 1997 which has been renewed regularly.
The latest truce expires July 31.
The rebels and the government have held at least 50 rounds of peace talks in the past nine years to end one of South Asia's longest running insurgencies.
The third round of talks with the ULFA representatives assumes significance as the rebel group was blamed by police in Assam state for triggering a string of explosions that killed eight people and wounded close to 100 earlier June.
The ULFA, a rebel group fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979, last October nominated an 11-member People's Consultative Group (PCG), a team of prominent civil society members.
Two rounds of talks were already held between the ULFA-chosen PCG and the government authorities.
The rebels are demanding the release of at least five senior jailed ULFA leaders before beginning direct talks with New Delhi.
"We have no problems in releasing some of the jailed ULFA leaders if that helps in bringing peace," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
More than 50,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in the northeast since India's independence in 1947.
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