Peace talks hindered by Centre's restrictions on leaders' visit to Nagaland: IM
Source: The Sangai Express
Dimapur, January 18, 2012:
The NSCN(IM) said the ongoing peace process has been severely affected by the recent developments imposing conditions on the visit of the collective leadership of the NSCN(IM) to Nagaland by the Centre.
Addressing the media at the Cease Fire Monitoring Group's (CFMG) office, convener of the steering committee of the NSCN(IM), Gen (Rtd) V S Atem slammed the Centre's directive imposing conditions on the collective leadership's visit to Zunheboto and termed it an "unjustified imposition".
"If the recent letter sent from the CFMG office has been written to us with the full sanction of the MHA, then the Centre has violated the spirit of ceasefire," he said.
He said since the Centre was eager for an early solution, the outfit decided to call the collective leadership back to the state so the negotiations could be taken up on a 24x7 basis.
Accusing the Centre of being against democracy, he said the letter restricting the collective leadership from holding any public meeting was against democratic activities of the Naga people.
When asked about their next step, Gen Atem said, "We will take all this to the Naga people.
We are not kept chained by the Indian Government," he said adding, they may try to impose conditions on us but we will not accept it blindly".