Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Apr 11: NSCN (IM) has said that Minister of state for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju is incompetent to speak on the Indo-Naga negotiations.
In an email to this daily, the NSCN (IM) said that “the signing of the Framework Agreement on 3rd August 2015 through the statesmanship of Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India and the NSCN leadership has laid the principles and foundation towards the final solution”.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday had said the territorial integrity of the Northeastern states would not be compromised and the contentious demand of the NSCN (IM) for unification of all the Naga-inhabited areas would not be included in the final Naga Framework Agreement.
He also said the Centre would come out with the final version of the Naga Framework Agreement to solve the Naga imbroglio within the tenure of the Narendra Modi government.
Kiren had said that the NSCN (IM)’s demand for unification of all the Naga-inhabited areas, including parts of Assam and other neighbouring states, would not be included in the final agreement.
He said the sovereignty and “other serious issues” had been dropped from the NSCN (IM)’s charter of demands and the Naga Framework Agreement was signed under the ambit of the Constitution.
In response, the NSCN (IM ) said that it is “unbecoming of Rijiju to have made such statements of the on-going negotiation to which he is incompetent to comment. It is demeaning of him to denigrate the Indo- Naga talk which is being held at the Prime Ministerial level. At no point of the negotiation have both the parties ignored important political issues, and the concocted statement of Mr.Rijiju that, “NSCN has ‘dropped’ the stand of the Nagas on their sovereign right” is a figment of his own imagination. When the talk is progressing at the highest level, Rijiju has no business to talk on political issues of which he is ignorant”.
“At this crucial stage, giving out irresponsible statements in the media or otherwise by any individual or party that contravenes the spirit of the peace talk is uncalled for. We advise him to restrain himself from such repetition in near future in the interest of both the parties”, the statement from the NSCN (IM) read.
