Naga rebels refuse to extend ceasefire

BANGKOK, Sunday, (AFP) - Peace talks between India and rebel separatists from northeastern Nagaland reached a deadlock with the rebels refusing to extend a nine-year-old ceasefire, a separatist leader said.

The two-day talks, which started in the Thai capital Bangkok, were aimed at saving the ceasefire which expires Tuesday.

Federal minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Oscar Fernandes, and New Delhi's chief peace negotiator K. Padmanabhaiah, led the government in the talks with leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).

"We refused to extend the ceasefire unless our demands are met by the Indian government," a senior NSCN leader said by telephone from Bangkok at the end of the first day of talks.

"The Indian government will have to convince us that there is a need to extend the truce and that progress has been made with respect to our demands," the rebel leader who wished not be identified said after the two-and-a-half hour talks.

One of the oldest and most powerful of about 30 rebel groups in India's northeast, the NSCN wants to create a "Greater Nagaland" by slicing off parts of three neighbouring states which have Naga populations to unite around 1.2 million Nagas.

The governments of Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh states have already rejected the demand for unification of Naga-dominated areas.

India was, however, hopeful of a solution on the second day of talks Sunday. "The talks will continue. We are hopeful of some solution," minister Fernandes told reporters after the meeting in Bangkok. "Not much progress could be made in the last six months but peace and tranquility was there. This is the requirement."

The NSCN, led by guerrilla leaders Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah who have lived in self-imposed exile mainly in Asia, agreed to a ceasefire with the Indian government in 1997.

"The ceasefire is for creating conducive atmosphere and it has to serve the purpose. And for that, the government of India has to show control on the situation on the ground (and take) political steps," Muivah said.

Since the start of the ceasefire, the two sides have held many rounds of talks in Bangkok and other foreign cities to end one of South Asia's longest running insurgencies which has claimed some 25,000 lives.....The rebels have threatened to go back to war if the two-day ialogue failed to make headway.