Friday, July 28 2006 16:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Guwahati: Peace talks to extend a ceasefire between a frontline separatist group in India's northeast and New Delhi's emissaries scheduled for Friday in Bangkok have been deferred by a day, a rebel leader aid.

Leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM), the main rebel group in Nagaland state, were to meet government peace interlocutors led by central minister Oscar Fernandes for talks on the nine-year ceasefire that expires July 31. The NSCN-IM entered into a ceasefire with New Delhi in August 1997.

"The talks begin Saturday in Bangkok and are likely to extend up to Sunday," R.H. Raising, a senior NSCN-IM leader, told sources over the phone from Nagaland's commercial hub Dimapur.

The NSCN-IM, led by guerrilla leaders Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, last week threatened not to extend their ceasefire, accusing the Indian Army of supplying weapons to a rival rebel outfit to provoke a 'fratricidal war'.

"I cannot say conclusively if the ceasefire would be extended beyond Monday. It would depend on the outcome of the talks to be held in Bangkok," Raising said.

The rebel leaders are expected to seek a clarification from the government on their charges of arming the rival NSCN faction led by S.S. Khaplang.

"The talks would be crucial as we want to know from the government about the security forces either smuggling weapons seized from our cadres or providing such seized arms to one of our rival factions," another senior NSCN-IM leader said.

"The question of ceasefire extension now depends on the response to our charges by the government in the Bangkok talks," he said.

The original Nagaland rebel group split in 1988 into two factions.

The NSCN-Khaplang struck a ceasefire with the government in 2001 although no formal peace talks have yet been held with that group.

The two sides regularly clash for territorial supremacy. At least 200 members of both outfits have been killed in turf battles in the past five years. The main group led by Muivah and Swu is seeking a 'Greater Nagaland' that would unite 1.2 million Nagas, a demand strongly opposed by neighbouring Indian states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

The other group is seeking an independent tribal homeland.

India and the NSCN-IM have held at least 50 rounds of peace talks in the past nine years to end one of South Asia's longest running insurgencies that have claimed around 25,000 lives since the country's independence in 1947.