The Indian government and a Naga insurgent group on Saturday decided to extend an existing cease-fire by another six months to help them continue negotiations to find a solution to the Nagas demand for a separate homeland, a news report said. India's government has been holding talks with Isak Chishi Swu, chairman of the rebel group and Thuingaleng Muivah, the general secretary, for seven years in Bangkok, Amsterdam, Paris and the Netherlands, according to AP. The two leaders visited New Delhi last year, but talks did not make progress. However, the truce accord has held for the past eight years. The decision to extend the cease-fire was taken during India's Intelligence Bureau Joint Director Ajit Lal's meeting with Naga leaders, led by Muivah, in Amsterdam on Friday and Saturday, Press Trust of India news agency said. The Isaac-Muivah faction of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland, or NSCN, is prominent among the dozens of separatist groups in India's remote and hilly northeast that have been fighting for demands ranging from autonomy to independence. Until the group began negotiating with the Indian government in 1997, it demanded an independent homeland for the Nagas. For the past eight years, it has been pressing for the merger of Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast with Nagaland state.
