NEW DELHI, Dec 21 (Reuters) - A top leader of a powerful separatist group in the Indian state of Nagaland voiced hope for a breakthrough in efforts to end a 60-year-old insurgency as he arrived in New Delhi for peace talks with the government.

Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), who has been living in exile since the mid-1980s, spoke late on Wednesday as he began a rare visit to India.

"I believe the prime minister of India is serious enough and we hope that we will be able to make a breakthrough and save the course of the peace process," Muivah told hundreds of students from the northeastern state who had turned up to welcome him.

Muivah, who has only once before held talks on Indian soil -- in August 2004 -- restated that the Nagas would not settle for anything less than a federation.

He said the Nagas were committed to "a federation of India and Nagaland, not a federation within the Indian government".

Muivah is expected to meet senior government officials informally on Friday and will be joined by NSCN-IM chairman Isaac Chishi Swu early next month for official talks, an NSCN-IM spokesman said.

The NSCN-IM agreed to a ceasefire in August 1997 and launched a peace process to bring an end to the country's longest-running insurgency, which has killed 20,000 people since 1947.

The nine-year peace process has made little progress due to rebel demands for the right to self-rule and the creation of a new state containing all Naga dominated areas, which is opposed by other tribes living amongst them.

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