As the three-day conclave of the Nagas ended today at Niuland, about 30 km from this town, the prospect of an early solution to the 50-year-old insurgency in Nagaland appeared as clouded as ever, with the leaders blowing hot and cold over the government's initiative.

One thing, however, was made clear that the Nagas considered the peace talks crucial. ``An opportunity once missed could at times be a thing missed forever,'' chairman of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) Isaac Swu told the delegates at the meeting.

Other leaders, including NSCN general secretary Th. Muivah and the ``Home Minister'' of its underground government RH Raising, repeated the words almost verbatim. Just as they all spoke about need for ``an honourable and lasting solution''.

``We have now entered the stage,'' Swu said, ``where we have to hammerthe last nail into the coffin of bondage.'' But Raising was more categorical. ``The Nagas will neither purchase peace/solution out of fear nor at the cost of their land or freedom,'' he told the gathering which was the largest get-together of leaders of the different tribes, the Church and the NGOs.Obviously, NSCN leaders were trying to use the meeting as a referendum for ``sovereignty'', which they would subsequently put across to the government for a negotiated settlement. But surely India would not entertain the idea of Naga sovereignty. ``We know there are differences in the approach of the two sides. But the idea is that the two sides have to come closer,'' said Phungthing Shimrang, NSCN convener on the cease-fire monitoring panel.

Neither the leaders nor the delegates came clean on a solution that would be ``mutually acceptable''. All that the leaders said was that the NSCN dismissed outright the two earlier formulas for solution the 1960 memorandum that created the State of Nagaland, and the 1975Shillong Accord, that had been rejected by Swu and Muivah Curiously, Swu's speech at the inaugural session upheld the ``plebiscite'' of 1951, which ``rejected'' both the Indian constitution and India's integration of Naga areas.

Interestingly, the NSCN last April made a significant change in its name it now calls the territory Nagalim, as in the days past, and not Nagaland. ``Nagaland was the name of the State the Indian Government created in 1963, but Nagalim is the name of our home which includes areas in present-day Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh as well as Myanmar,'' explained Shimrang. In his speech yesterday at the Niuland meeting, Muivah too brushed aside the suggestion that the problem could be solved by creating a Greater Nagaland, adding Naga-majority areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal to the present Nagalan. ``It's not a question of smaller or greater Nagaland. It's a question of the freedom of the Naga nation'', he said.

If the conclave ended rather ambiguously on the question of thepossible political solution, it left no doubt that the NSCN, led by Swu and Muivah, would give no quarters to the other faction, NSCN (Khaplang) in conducting negotiations with the government.