Washington, DC— It was a major concession to the Niger Delta militants by the Nigerian government, or so it appeared.In a basement conference room of the Center for Strategic and International Studies here, Ojo Maduekwe, the Nigerian foreign minister, came close last week to admitting that our government is prepared to accept foreign mediation in an effort to defuse the Niger Delta crisis.

But he moved briskly away from the idea, put forward by a UK cleric with the apparent consent of the leading militant groups, that such mediation take place outside Nigeria.

The proposal is “attractive, but may be politically unobtainable” because of sensitivities over sovereignty—the appearance that Nigeria would be dealing with the militias as if they represented an independent state.

“It is impossible to go outside the country,” Mr. Maduekwe said here Monday. “The danger is that of domino effect. The people of the Niger Delta are not the only ones. If you come to my village, you find Biafran flags all over the place. We take the flags down and they are replaced the next day. If MASSOB [Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra] hears that Niger Delta militants have been rewarded, they too can resort to violence.”

The discussion panel convened by the CSIS last Monday pulled together leading external experts on the Niger Delta crisis, along with Maduekwe and the newly appointed minister for the delta, Ufot Ekatte, the former secretary to the government. The event also attracted a small but vocal group of Nigerias, who heckled the ministers and called loudly for justice.

The meeting took place in the middle of a major military escalation in the Delta, which followed the killing of at least 13 Nigerian Army troops by the militants last month.

The onslaught has left thousands of innocent displaced and many killed. But it has also resulted in the dismantling of a vast network of militant camps throughout the region.

The seeming upper hand in maximum force enjoyed so far by the Army has clearly emboldened the administration, which sees renewed willingness on the part of the various militant groups to negotiate as a sign that the military offensive has proved effective.

“Maybe force is working; maybe that is why these groups are coming to the table,” Mr. Maduekwe said.

But Peter Lewis, an expert on Nigeria at the CSIS, argued that the Nigerian government response to the crisis has been marked by too much force and too little negotiation. “Unless a security response is linked to a broader peace process, we really can’t hope for any forward motion,” he said.

Stephen Davis of Coventry Cathedral in England, who has worked closely with the militants to try and move them towards negotiations with the Nigerian government, put forward a path to peace, saying the militants were willing to come to the table provided a foreign mediator was present. The militants, he said, also would prefer that negotiations occur outside Nigeria.

The government has been resistant to this idea, though seemingly less to having a foreign mediator and sitting down for talks outside our borders.

Mr Ekaette, the Niger Delta ministers, openly admitted that succeeding governments had failed to keep their promises to the people of the Niger Delta, and pledged that the current government would fare far better.

To which, a heckler from the audience retorted: “Why should be trust you now?”