GUWAHATI: The leader of a powerful insurgent group in remote northeast India warned there could be fresh violence after lengthy peace talks with New Delhi failed to resolve the decades-old conflict, the rebels said on Wednesday. The warning from the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN I-M) came after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at the weekend that finding a solution to the revolt by the Naga tribespeople would take more time.

But the NSCN (I-M), which began a ceasefire with Indian security forces in 1997 and held talks in India and abroad to seek a solution to their demand for an independent homeland, signalled its patience was wearing thin.

“The worst may come again. Be prepared for any eventuality,” a senior NSCN (I-M) official quoted general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah as telling supporters late on Tuesday at the rebel headquarters near Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland state.

About 20,000 people have died in the rebellion in Christian-dominated Nagaland since it began more than five decades ago.

Muivah was speaking after returning from New Delhi where the latest series of talks between the militant group and Indian officials failed to make a breakthrough. Nagaland is one of seven states in the insurgency-riven northeast, surrounded by China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and linked to the rest of India by only a narrow strip of land.

More than two dozen major insurgent groups operate in the region, home to over 200 ethnic and tribal communities. The rebel outfits are fighting variously for independence, greater autonomy, statehood or just more tribal rights.

Muivah told cadres it was up to the government to make the next move. “If there is political will, they can solve it. The ball is in their court,” he was quoted as saying. But an Indian official said the NSCN (I-M)’s frustration with the latest talks in New Delhi, which have dragged on for more than four months, was unlikely to cause a breakdown of the truce.

“It will be difficult for them to break the ceasefire all of a sudden, because their cadres are confined to designated camps under our supervision,” a federal government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The main sticking point in talks has been New Delhi’s refusal to accept the NSCN’s (I-M) demand to merge Naga-dominated areas, including districts from neighbouring northeastern states, into a “Greater Nagaland”.

Indian officials fear giving in to the demand would set the stage for an independent Naga homeland, or that a “Greater Nagaland” would lead to bloodshed as other ethnic and tribal groups in the troubled region would violently oppose the move.—Reuters