Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 08/02) - The minister of Indian and Northern affairs will personally intervene in a decade-long boundary dispute between two territorial First Nations.

Robert Nault said he will sit with the Akaitcho Territory First Nation and the Dogrib Treaty 11 First Nation to settle their boundary dispute.

In a separate interview after an April 3, press conference, Nault told News/North no date had been set for a meeting.

The Akaitcho and Dogrib have been stalemated in their roller-coaster boundary discussions since February 2001. Both nations claim rights to the same piece of territory stretching north of Great Slave Lake to the Nunavut boundary.

Akaitcho chief negotiator Don Balsillie said the Akaitcho leadership met with Nault on Wednesday but couldn't get a commitment to suspend the signing of the Dogrib land claim final agreement until the boundary issue is settled.

"He wasn't prepared for that," said Balsillie.

The final agreement could be initialled as early as this August.

Premier Stephen Kakfwi urged both sides to settle the boundary dispute on their own in a speech during the Dene Assembly in March.

"They will settle it," said Kakfwi about the dispute in a separate interview.

Dogrib chief negotiator John B. Zoe said the boundary issue has not changed since Akaitcho withdrew from talks in this February.

He could not be reached to comment on Nault's statement.

The Akaitcho has threatened court action over the issue. They fear the Dogrib final agreement will extinguish their rights to land they claim.