An influential militant group in Assam has said that it is keenly watching the outcome of the ongoing Naga talks in Delhi and hoped that a settlement between New Delhi and the Naga rebels would help resolve other armed conflicts in the region.
The banned United Liberation Front of Asom said it would join the fresh peace process if the Centre succeeded in settling the homeland issue with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland.
"ULFA does heartily wish for a peaceful solution of this decades' old conflict. If there is a peaceful solution, we will definitely pursue the footsteps of the process," ULFA said in a statement published in its mouthpiece Freedom.
Reacting to the Naga peace process for the first time since the two NSCN (I-M) leaders -- Issac Swu and Thuinglang Muivah -- arrived in India last week, the ULFA said the "endeavour will be regarded as the acid test of the sincerity of India to solve the conflicts of our region politically. Otherwise, all hopes for peaceful settlement of the other conflicts will be submerged under mistrust and battle-cry."
The outfit's observations on the Naga peace process are a virtual reiteration of its earlier stand on secession. The ULFA, which has been waging an armed struggle to free Assam from the "colonial" yoke of Delhi, said the solution to any conflict in the region was impossible "without giving back sovereignty."
The ULFA, operating out of bases in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, had earlier offered to talk to the government, but wanted such negotiations to be held at a neutral venue under the supervision of United Nations' representatives.
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