ULFA sets terms for talks

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom has put forward three conditions before talks can commence between the government and the extremist organisation.

ULFA has demanded that the government take a clear stand on the army's withdrawal from the north-eastern state, that the negotiations be held in a foreign country and that the talks be centred on the sovereignty of Assam.

In response to Prime Minister I K Gujral's appeal to different insurgent groups, during his recent visit to the North-East, ULFA's central committee publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary said, ''Instead of beating around the bush, the prime minister and the Assam chief minister should first make their views clear on the three conditions and then initiate the process of talks.''

Gujral, he said, while describing the militants as his ''children,'' had appreciated the army for its work in Assam. ''Let the prime minister first make his stand clear, then make his offer of peace talks to us,'' Daimary declared.

Meanwhile, at a meeting in Guwahati, leading citizens of Assam called upon the insurgent groups in the state to eschew violence.

Participants at the meeting, convened by Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta on Tuesday night, expressed serious concern over economic backwardness in the state and termed it as the root cause of the present state of insurgency.