The summit meeting, which started from this afternoon at Baluwatar, is continuing with leaders of seven parties and the Maoists engaged in series of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral consultations.

The informal rounds of meeting started some time after Maoist chairman Prachanda along with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai arrived at the official residence of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala just before 4 pm.

In the subsequent hours, a series of separate meetings between the PM and Maoist chairman; the top leaders of Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML); and the top leaders of NC, UML, NC (Democratic) and Maoists were held.

As the issue of arms management has been ‘almost settled’ as per the understanding to have single lock system in the Maoist cantonment with UN technology installed to monitor it, today’s meeting focused on other issues like interim constitution, interim legislature and interim government.

“Our consultations are focused around interim legislature,” Arjun Narsingh KC, a central leader of NC told BBC Nepali Service. According to him, till 8:30 pm the full-fledged summit meeting among SPA and the Maoists had not begun. He, however, added that they were narrowing down differences and are quite near to the final conclusion on all issues.

Another NC leader Mahesh Acharya added that the meeting is moving ahead with the hope of reaching positive outcome. “We are moving ahead with the aim of assuring Nepali people. This delay (in the conclusion of the talks) is not because of new disputes,” he added. Leaders have said that if the formal adoption of agreement is not possible on Monday, the meeting could continue the following day.