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| Neiphiu Rio |
Kohima, Aug. 15 : Nagaland ministers and Opposition Congress leaders will meet top central leaders to urge them to expedite the Naga peace process which has not shown any sign of progress even after 12 years.
The state cabinet, led by chief minister Neiphiu Rio, will leave for New Delhi on Monday where they will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P. Chidambaram and request them to be more flexible on the peace process in the greater interest of the Naga people.
“We are going to Delhi for the Naga peace process,” Rio said here today.
He said the Naga peace process, which has hit a roadblock, must not be allowed to collapse at this juncture.
The state cabinet will first meet Chidambaram on Tuesday, which will be followed by a meeting with the Prime Minister. Rio, for the first time, disclosed that the Naga peace process between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) had reached a dead end.
He, however, said his government would continue to play the role of an active facilitator. The chief minister also suggested an “interim” arrangement between the two negotiating parties while trying to hammer out an “honourable and acceptable” solution to the Naga issue.
However, the Opposition Congress has criticised such an arrangement.
The Congress leaders, who recently met Singh and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi and apprised them of the need to expedite the Naga peace process, will meet the central leaders again. CLP leader Chingwang Konyak and PCC president K.V. Pusa, who left for New Delhi today, will lead the Congress delegation.
Pusa today urged the Centre to invite all Naga militant groups for negotiation as he felt that hammering out a solution with only one group would not resolve the issue.
“The Centre must invite all the factions for a dialogue,” Pusa told The Telegraph.
He said the 12-year-old Naga peace process should not break down and efforts must be made to expedite the talks between the Centre and the NSCN-IM.
Union minister of state for planning and parliamentary affairs and AICC general secretary V. Narayanaswami, who was in the state recently, categorically stated that no solution was possible outside the ambit of the Constitution.
However, he added that a solution was possible if both the Centre and the NSCN adhere to the “terms and conditions” agreed upon prior to the 1997 ceasefire declaration.
The NSCN, on the other hand, today said that it viewed any attempt to seek a solution within the parameters of the Constitution as a deliberate betrayal.