Yellowknife (May 20/05) - Grand Chief Herb Norwegian is still refusing to talk in detail about negotiations to end a pipeline impasse.

He was scheduled to meet Andy Scott, minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, in Ottawa on Wednesday.

A Dehcho First Nations (DFN) leadership meeting in Fort Liard was postponed from this week to next.

Deh Cho aboriginal leaders sat across from senior federal bureaucrats in Yellowknife on Friday and Saturday. Dehcho First Nations has a lawsuit against the federal government and a regulatory board in an attempt to gain greater input on an environmental review for a proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

The federal government is in danger of falling to a non-confidence motion and Imperial Oil announced two weeks ago that it is halting engineering and geo-technical preparatory work for the pipeline.

Regardless, the grand chief said that the complexion of negotiations hasn't changed much.

"I think (the federal negotiators) are pretty well sticking to their guns. We're doing the same thing here, too. So I didn't think there was that kind of urgency," Norwegian said Monday.

The two sides have met about 10 times since the DFN resorted to court action, Norwegian estimated. He said DFN is still aiming to "complete the shopping list" of terms stated in the resolution from the Wrigley special assembly in 2001. Among those conditions is a resource revenue sharing agreement, an impact benefits agreement and access fees, and consent from hunters and trappers along the pipeline corridor.

The grand chief agreed to a confidentiality clause several months ago and, on the topic of the lawsuit, has been guarded in the media ever since.

An official with Indian Affairs said employees within the department are bound by the same confidentiality agreement. "There's not much we can say, other than if we're still meeting that's a good thing," the source said.