Guwahati: The banned ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) has agreed to give up its preconditions of holding talks in a third country under the supervision of UN representatives but is sticking to its demand for Assam sovereignty.

''We are willing to come down to even Dispur (the State Secretariat) to hold talks as long as the agenda revolved around Assam's sovereignty,'' a caller identifying himself as ULFA's commander-in-chief Paresh Barua told a local daily over telephone last night (Aug 8, 2004).

He also said that there was no need of any mediators for holding talks in this age of high-speed communication facilities. ''We have everybody's telephone numbers and if the Central government is willing to talk on the sovereignty issue so are we,'' he added.

He said that they will not ever give up their demand for 'Swadhin Asom' (independent Asom) and ''we will continue our struggle for years if need be to achieve our aims''.

Barua denied speculations about rifts among the top leaders of the banned outfit saying the ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and he grew up together, were associated with the outfit since its inception and such ''stories are being spread to weaken the outfit''.

The ULFA commander-in-chief also owned responsibility for the blasts in Titabor and Guwahati yesterday (Aug 8, 2004) and on Saturday (Aug 7, 2004).