The two top Naga rebel leaders are likely to call on the prime minister and home minister P Chidambaram, official sources said here today.
Carrying forward the dialogue process on the vexed Naga issue, NSCN-IM chairman Isak Chisi Swu and general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah will arrive in New Delhi tomorrow to hold talks with the Centre's new pointsman and are likely to meet prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Swu and Muivah, who had last visited India in December 2006 and held talks with government leaders, are coming a fornight after the government appointed RS Pandey, a former petroleum secretary, as the new interlocutor on Naga talks earlier this month.
The two top Naga rebel leaders, who are based in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, are likely to call on the prime minister and home minister P Chidambaram, official sources said here today.
Ahead of meetings with political leadership, the Naga leaders will hold talks with Pandey on March 2 and 3, they said.
The two leaders were also expected to visit Nagaland besides addressing to the issue of clashes between the cadres of NSCN-IM and its rival NSCN (Khaplang), which resulted in unrest in the recent past.
Sources in the government said they would try and iron out the differences with the Centre on key issues, including the sovereignty demand under which the NSCN-IM has proposed a federal relationship with the Indian Union. Pandey was appointed as the new interlocutor for Naga talks on February 12 and while appointing him, Chidambaram had said, "I am happy to announce the appointment of RS Pandey as the interlocutor and the representative of the government of India to hold talks with NSCN-IM."
A Nagaland cadre IAS officer of 1972 batch, Pandey has served as chief secretary in the insurgency-hit state and is a recipient of Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Service in 2007 besides the UN Public Service Award in 2008.
He was appointed in place of former home secretary K Padmanabhaiah, who had handled the dialogue process with the NSCN-IM for nearly a decade. The government relieved him from the responsibility last September.
The Naga delegation is now expecetd to continue its discussion with Pandey over the limits of flexibility within the Constitution and whether a "sub-national constitution" could be accommodated within it.
The two leaders may also review progress made since the NSCN-IM submitted a 20-point charter of demands to the Centre. In this charter, the NSCN-IM has sought unification of all Naga-inhabited areas of the north-east--an issue opposed by Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh--separate representation at the UN and greater rights over natural resources, finance, defence and policing.
A ceasefire was agreed upon with NSCN-IM since August 1997. In May 1998, the first negotiator Swaraj Kaushal was appointed. He continued in hispost till July 1999.
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