Kohima, Sept. 16: After anchoring the Naga peace process for years, the Church has decided to lie low for sometime, apprehending confrontation if “too many parties” are involved in the campaign.

Leaders of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) today said the Naga Hoho, the apex tribal council of Nagaland, had taken upon itself the responsibility of taking the peace process forward and the Church would not like to conduct a parallel programme.

“The government has endorsed the Naga Hoho’s programmes and we do not want to be the scapegoat should anything go wrong,” one of them said.

The Church reportedly decided to take a breather when the Naga Hoho-constituted Reconciliation Commission was sidelined from the peace process at the behest of the NSCN (Isak-Muivah).

The militant group had objected to the inclusion of some Naga leaders in the commission.

The Centre and the NSCN (I-M) will resume their dialogue in Amsterdam on Thursday.

NBCC general secretary Zhabu Terhuja said the onus of restoring peace in Nagaland and other parts of the region was on both the political and the NSCN (I-M) leadership. He said the biggest hurdle was the militant group’s demand for integration of all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of the Northeast.

On criticism of the government’s decision to give Rs 60 lakh to the Church, Terhuja said the NBCC was contemplating whether to refuse the financial assistance.

He said the Church was convinced there was nothing ethically wrong about accepting the money, but would respect public opinion.

The BJP, surprisingly, has no objection to the Church being given money for a good cause. “I am sure if a temple trust comes up tomorrow, it will receive similar help,” the leader of the party’s Northeast cell, V. Satish, said here yesterday.