The hopes for an end to five decades of violent insurgency in India's northeastern state of Nagaland has brightened with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee holding peace talks in Japan with top Naga tribal separatists.
Nagaland leaders said Vajpayee's meeting in Osaka last night with Isak Chishi Swu and Thuigaleng Muivah, chairman and general secretary respectively of the outlawed National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), signalled that the peace process was well underway.
The NSCN is fighting for an independent tribal homeland in Nagaland.
"We sincerely hope the meeting between the prime minister and the two NSCN leaders in Osaka could pave the way for a permanent solution to the vexed insurgency problem in the state," said Mr G Gainam, leader of the Naga Hoho, the apex tribal council in Nagaland. "Any move that could bring peace to our state is welcome," Mr Gainam told AFP.
During the meeting, the two sides stressed on the need for a "negotiated, peaceful, political settlement" of the insurgency problem in Nagaland, besides agreeing to hold further talks.
The NSCN had entered into a ceasefire with the federal government in August 1997 following which several rounds of peace talks were held abroad between the militant leadership and government emissaries.
But state officials have alleged the ceasefire accord has been frequently violated by NSCN leaders as they have carried out violent attacks.
"We want peace in Nagaland and the Osaka meeting could be the beginning of an end to long years of bloodshed and violence in the region," Reverend V.K. Nuh, head of the Council of Baptist Churches in Nagaland, said.
The Osaka meeting was held even as community leaders in Nagaland called a pre-Christmas reconciliation meeting of thousands of people in the state capital Kohima on December 20 to take a pledge for beginning an era of peace.
Peace talks between the NSCN and the Indian government almost collapsed earlier this year over the area where the ceasefire would be effective.
While the Naga rebels demanded the truce be extended to all Naga-inhabited areas of the northeast, the move was opposed by neighbouring states who feared that this would lead to a loss of their own territory and creation of a "Greater Nagaland."
At least 25,000 people have lost their lives in conflict in Nagaland since India's independence in 1947.
AFP