Chairman of underground Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has put off the 4th round of peace talks with the government for now. In a statement issued Wednesday, the Maoist leader said that his party would not completely close the doors for peace talks in the future.

In the statement, Prachanda said that the desire and efforts of the people and Maoist party to seek positive political outlet through peace talks have been made unsuccessful by imperialist and reactionary conspiracies.

Now there is no alternative before Nepalese people other than to continue their struggle for nationalism, democracy (janabad) and livelihood, the Maoist leader said in the statement. “We want to make one thing clear that we will not close the doors for
talks in the new context for the fundamental interest of the people”, Prachanda said.

In the present context of ceasefire, the justification of continuing talks has ended, the statement says. “Our party, thus, has closed the doors for talks in the present context,” he said. He did not say whether the Maoist rebels would resume direct armed conflict suspended since July.

The reaction of Maoist party came following the deadlock in the 3rd round of talks between the government and Maoist rebels aiming to end the six-year old armed insurgency.

In the third round of talks, Maoist side demanded a constituent assembly to write a new constitution whereas the government representatives flatly dismissed the Maoist demand. The government insisted that Maoist should abandon violence and come to
democratic mainstream.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba slammed the Maoist leadership for double standard as rebels continued abduction, extortion and killing despite agreement reached to halt all kind of such offensive activities.

Maoists have dropped their demand of abrogation of monarchy but said that they would not compromise the demand of constituent assembly.

In the six-year old insurgency, more than 1800 people have been killed.