Advisor for Information & Public Relations and Soil & Water Conservation, Imkong L Imchen on Tuesday claimed that 100% Nagas today wanted a political settlement, but expressed concern that “our negotiators want to prolong it,” which described as “very unfortunate.”
Speaking as chief patron at the 26th Inter-District and State Table Tennis Championship at the multi-purpose sports complex Mokokchung, Imchen opined that the negotiators may not be interested in bringing the issue to a conclusion. “They wanted to prolong it, sustain it at the expense of our progress, advancements, and development,” adding that “to trust in their word has become a very difficult issue”.
Claiming that the negotiators may not be capable of taking decisions, Imchen said it has become very difficult to trust their words, adding “they are not trust worthy negotiator.”
He said that negotiation means talking with certain power or authority across the table.
“While you have agreed to talk, you have to talk sense, but if you start talking unreasonable or senseless issue, your opposite party loses interest in your pleading and that is costing Nagas very dearly,” Imchen remarked.
Further, advisor said that all the stakeholders should mutually accept to redraw the boundaries only then Nagaland can be made smaller or bigger. “Only by the will of the people, state boundaries can be drawn or redrawn,” he said.
Imchen said that while the NSCN (I-M) signed Framework Agreement with the government of India, the Naga people thought that it was a great agreement. However, he lamented that soon after the agreement was made, the NSCN (I-M) started objecting to their own agreement. “We don’t understand why they are objecting in their own agreement…we only understand that they are not interested in bringing a solution,” Imchen said.
Later interacting with the press, he stated that even after signing of the Framework Agreement, he wondered how many rounds of talks/negotiations were held. He alleged that instead of bringing any solution all they do was complain after complain. Asked about expectation for solution, Imchen replied that he expected nothing to happen.
He further stated that the Agreed Position between the Seven NNPGs and government of India have so far been without any complaints. He said the discussions touched on various aspects like delimitation of constituencies, demand for frontier Nagaland by ENPO and so on.