Khanal asks PM to clarify his remarks on foreign meddling

CPN (UML) chairman Jhala Nath Khanal

CPN (UML) chairman Jhala Nath Khanal has asked Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai to clarify his recent remarks that the "key to run the country is somewhere else".

"The Prime Minister must explain who holds the key. If he cannot do that he has no right to be in the chair of Prime Minister even for a minute," Khanal said while speaking to journalists at his residence in Dallu Tuesday.

"He has made an irresponsible remark. People have the right to know what it is all about," Khanal said, adding that the resignation of Bhattarai is the prerequisite for forging a political consensus.

On Friday, during an interaction with journalists at his residence, PM Bhattarai had spoken extensively about "foreign intervention", indirectly admitting that intervention in the country's internal affairs was growing of late.

"You already know about regional and international dynamics. It is not easy to get things done the way one would like," Bhattarai said.

He also revealed that Yaswant Sinha, a leader of India's main opposition, BJP, was in Kathmandu last week at the invitation of President Ram Baran Yadav and expressed dissatisfaction over the undermining of diplomatic protocol by Shital Niwas. "To invite a foreign delegate in that manner is uncalled for," he said.

Asked about the revelation by Indian professor SD Muni in his newly published book that the Maoist leadership had written a letter during the insurgency promising not to work against Indian interests in Nepal, PM Bhattarai admitted to have sent the letter, through Muni, to the then Indian government's security advisor Brajesh Mishra.

"We wrote letters to United Nations and the governments of different countries including the neighbors to clarify our position. The letter to the Indian prime minister was the similar one" he said, adding, "The letters to the UN, China and India was later published in our mouthpiece, The Worker." nepalnews.com