Indian negotiators and leaders of a powerful separatist group in the northeastern state of Nagaland have agreed to extend for six months a cease-fire aimed at ending nearly six decades of violence, a rebel leader said Sunday. The extension of the deadline, due to expire Sunday midnight, was agreed by the two sides during talks in Amsterdam, the senior leader of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) told AFP.
It was announced in a joint statement late Saturday after the two-day Amsterdam meeting between NSCN-IM leader Thuingaleng Muivah and India's chief peace interlocutor K. Padmanabhaiah.
The statement said both sides "reaffirmed the need to extend the cease-fire and to intensify the peace process."
"As the NSCN-IM intends to hold extensive consultations with the people, the ceasefire is formally extended for a period of six months, whereafter it will be extended further," it said.
"From our side we wanted the ceasefire to be extended by just three months instead of the usual one-year extension period that we have been following since the truce began in 1997," the rebel leader told AFP by telephone from Nagaland's commercial hub of Dimapur.
"But then the government negotiator told us that extending the truce by just three months could be wrongly interpreted and may send some wrong signal," he said, requesting anonymity.
The NSCN, one of the oldest and most powerful of about 30 rebel groups in India's north-east, wants to create a "Greater Nagaland" out of Nagaland state by slicing off parts of neighbouring states that have Naga tribal populations.
The Indian government, however, has virtually turned down the rebel group's demand to redraw the map of the northeast. The three state governments of Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh have already rejected the NSCN demand.
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