December 04, 2002

KATHMANDU:  The underground Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) issued a press statement Tuesday offering to hold peace talks with the government and renewed its pledge not to mug political activists and attack development infrastructure.

The Maoist leadership also formed a high-level dialogue committee to find a peaceful way out of the present political uncertainty in the country, the press statement said.

“We are ready to hold talks with all political forces including the current ruler of old regime,” said the Maoists in the statement released after the politburo meeting. The Maoists however have not budged from their earlier demand for a round table conference, interim government and constituent assembly.

Meanwhile speaking to the press in Biratnagar Tuesday Home Minister Dharma Bahadur Thapa said independent facilitators had been working to bring the Maoists to the negotiating table.

The peace proposal of the Maoists came hours after Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand told a programme organized to mark the 91st birth anniversary of late Tanka Prasad Acharya that the government was ready to hold peace talks with the Maoists.

He said the Maoists should abandon violence and the destruction of development infrastructure as it was against the national interest. The Maoists had withdrawn from a four month long cease-fire in November 2001 stepping up attacks on police and army posts in different parts of the country.

The government declared the state of emergency on November 26 last year after the Maoists pulled out of the peace talks unilaterally. The rebels killed over 120 people in a single weekend in February 2002. This was followed by call for nationwide strikes, which crippled the country completely.