Aizawl: Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga today (Feb 3, 2004) left for Bangkok from Kolkata to hold talks with the top NSCN I-M (National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isaac Muivah) leaders who were planning to come to the negotiating table in New Delhi.

Zoramthanga, accompanied by his wife Roneihangi, left Delhi and came to Kolkata last evening (Feb 2, 2004) and stayed in the airport till his departure for Bangkok due to a 12-hour Bengal bandh called by Trinamool Congress, officials in Kolkata Mizoram House said.

"His main mission in the Thai capital, where he would be meeting top NSCN leaders including Th. Muivah and Issac Chishi Swu, would be to settle differences that cropped up in the Centre-NSCN talks and prepare the ground works for the resumption of talks in New Delhi," sources close to him said.

The talks between the Naga rebels and the Centre would be taken up at the political level, the sources said.

A former rebel leader himself and one of the architects of the historic Mizo Peace Accord signed between the Centre and the erstwhile underground Mizo National Front (MNF) in 1986, Zoramthanga expressed optimism about the outcome of the Naga dialogue.

He, however, maintained that his main role in the peace deal would be to create mutual trust between the two sides for conducive atmosphere in the negotiations and would not participate in the parleys.

Earlier, he had discussed the preparations of the coming Centre-Naga talks with the Union Home Ministry officials in New Delhi during the second week of January.