On termination of flips and fundamental groups

Abstract: In this article, we propose a boundedness conjecture for the regional fundamental group of klt singularities. We prove that this boundedness conjecture, the Zariski closedness of the diminished base locus of $K_X$, and an upper bound for minimal log discrepancies, imply the termination of flips with scaling. We prove the boundedness conjecture in the case of toric singularities, quotient singularites, isolated $3$-fold singularities, and exceptional singularities.