The Eastern Nagaland People’s Organization (ENPO) held firm to its stance on Wednesday that it “cannot sign any documents” without securing financial, legislative and executive autonomy during another round of tripartite talks led by Naga peace talks interlocutor A K Mishra.
On Wednesday, a three-member team representing the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, led by Mishra, met representatives of the state government and the ENPO in Dimapur.
After the meeting, ENPO president Chingmak Chang said that talks are “on the right track” and the Centre has agreed to financial legislative and executive autonomy “in principle,” calling the question of a ‘Frontier Naga Territory’ a third option offered to it by the Centre, which it is willing to accept if these are met.
“Without autonomy in these three things we cannot sign any documents. Financial executive and legislative autonomy, which they have agreed to in principle… The demand of ENPO is separate statehood. Then the government of India has offered us this FNT, a third option. So we hope that the government of India is serious and the solution will be acceptable and honourable to the ENPO people,” he said.
“There are a few key issues to which we could not come to a conclusion. We have discussed thoroughly today and let us hope the next meeting will be held very soon,” he said.
Last month, a round of tripartite talks were held in Delhi. For over a year now, ENPO leaders — whose initial demand was for a separate state comprising the six relatively backward districts of Eastern Nagaland — have said that the discussion with the Centre is for an arrangement for autonomy called ‘Frontier Naga Territory’ within the state of Nagaland.
On Tuesday, the ENPO had issued a statement saying that the tribal bodies representing the eight tribes from Eastern Nagaland “warned” the ENPO delegation “not to accept any solution below executive, legislative and financial autonomy.”
The long-standing demand for a separate state for Eastern Nagaland — primarily driven by the relative backwardness of the region — had flared up ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections, following which there have been multiple rounds of talks. The current talks come after a pause of about a year during which there was a wait for the Nagaland government to forward its comments on the Centre’s draft Memorandum of Settlement on an arrangement. The state government finally sent its comments last November.
-Agencies