Naga rebels extend truce by one year

More than 20,000 people have died in a nearly six-decade struggle for an independent homeland for the mainly the Christian Naga people on India's fareastern border with Myanmar, but violence has diminished since a ceasefire was agreed in 1997.

"The ceasefire has been extended by one year," Phunthing Shimray of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) told Reuters by telephone after three days of talks with Indian negotiators in Bangkok.

In January the rebels extended the truce for only six months, instead of a year, as there was little progress on the central rebel demands -- unification of Naga-dominated areas in northeast India and ultimately independence.