Almost a year after the Naga framework agreement was signed by the government with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), the largest Naga insurgent group, a top government official told The Hindu that they were still not sure of giving a “time frame” for the final peace pact. Another official said the insurgent group had gone back on its demand for “full sovereignty.”
On Friday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh held a meeting with Joint Intelligence Committee chief R.N Ravi, who is also the interlocutor for Naga talks.
Outfit’s claimThe meeting comes in the backdrop of a claim made by the NSCN-IM on June 20 that the Government of India had accepted its demand for a separate passport and flag.
R.H. Raising, the Kilo Kilonser (home minister) of the NSCN-IM, had said the Government of India had agreed to the group’s demand for a separate passport and a separate flag.
‘Talks are still on’“Whoever is making these claims is not true. The negotiations and talks are still on,” said one of the officials present at the meeting on Friday. Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief Rajinder Khanna was also present during the deliberations.
“It will be difficult to give a time frame for the talks to conclude, it can be tomorrow or might take six more months,” said the official.
At a meeting of the Ceasefire Monitoring Group held in April in Delhi, the government raised the issue of extortion by the NSCN-IM in different parts of Nagaland and Manipur and asked it to stop such activity.
Framework agreementOn August 3, 2015, the government signed the ‘framework agreement’ with the NSCN-IM for finding a final solution to the vexed Naga issue. The agreement was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the outfit’s leader T. Muivah at the Prime Minister’s residence.
“The framework agreement contained various demands of the NSCN-IM and a separate passport and flag was also demanded by them then. The Government of India’s reply was very clear on this that we don’t agree to this,” said another government official.
The NSCN-IM has been in talks with the Centre’s representative for the last 17 years ever since it had entered into a ceasefire agreement in 1997.
