“Crucial” third round of summit meeting underway
The crucial third round of the summit meeting between the ruling seven party alliance (SPA) and Maoists kicked off at Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar from 2.30 p.m.
Top leaders of all eight political parties are participating in the meeting.
The meeting is reportedly discussing the three point proposal tabled by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala for finding consensus in the contentious issues that are yet to be resolved.
Talking to journalists before entering the talks venue, UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari said that today’s talks will be decisive.
He further said that they will find consensus in all the issues as per the people’s aspiration expressed during the Jana Andolan (People’s movement) II.
Prior to the summit level talks, top leaders of major four parties – Nepali Congress, NC (Democratic), Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and Maoists held a meeting at Baluwatar this morning to resolve the hitherto unresolved issues such as arms management, status of monarchy and modalities of interim arrangement including interim parliament and interim government as the government and Maoist talks teams failed to find consensus in these issues earlier.
PM Girija Prasad Koirala, who is also the president of NC; Maoist chairman Prachanda; UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and NC-Democratic president Sher Bahadur Deuba attended the meeting. Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai was also present.
Talks teams of the government as well as the Maoists also held separate meetings to find consensus in some unresolved issues this morning.
The first and second round of meetings ended inconclusively as the ruling SPA and Maoists failed to find consensus in issues like Maoist arms management, fate of monarchy, and interim legislature among others.
However, participants of the talks team said that there is disagreement among the ruling SPA and Maoists mainly in the issues of Maoist arms management and future of monarchy.
The ruling seven political parties have been saying that the fate of monarchy should be decided through the election of the constituent assembly or referendum and the Maoist arms should be separated before the election of the constituent assembly, while Maoists are demanding that there should be no space for monarchy in the interim constitution and their army should be placed in cantonments along with their weapons till the election of the constituent assembly.
According to leaders, Tuesday’s talks were postponed as PM Koirala said that he would table a proposal to end the deadlock in the talks on Thursday.
Tuesday’s summit meeting however decided to constitute the Election Commission (EC) by mid-October and recommend to the EC to complete the election to constituent assembly by mid-June 2007.
Tuesday's summit meeting also assigned the talks teams of the government and the Maoists to explore points of commonalities in the unresolved issues.
At a press conference held to inform about the development in Tuesday’s summit talks, coordinators of the government and Maoist talks teams said today’s meeting will make a historic decision in the outstanding issues.
Speaking at an interaction in the capital Wednesday, leaders of ruling seven political parties and Maoists also expressed the hope that today’s summit talks would be decisive.
As usual, people from various organizations have been organizing demonstrations in front of the Prime Minister’s residence to pressurize the government and the Maoists to make the talks decisive, hold the elections of the constituent assembly at the earliest and also to fulfill their demands.
The security of the Baluwatar area has been tightened keeping in view the crucial round of talks. nepalnews.com pb Oct 12 06
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