UN mission gives deadline to government, Maoist to find consensus on arms management

July 31, 2006
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Team leader of UN mission to Nepal, Staffan de Mistura, talking to journalists after meeting with the government’s peace talks team at the Home Ministry Friday afternoon. Mistura met the Maoist leaders earlier in the day, July 28 06. nepalnews.com/rh

Team leader of UN mission to Nepal, Staffan de Mistura
(File photo)
The high level UN assessment mission led by Staffan de Mistura has urged the ruling seven-party alliance (SPA), the government and Maoists to reach a consensus on the issue of arms management before it returns to New York.

“The main point I tried to make is that we have only three-and-a-half days left and that it is very important to have on a priority basis a common understanding on the side of all the Nepalese interlocutors about the arms management issue,” de Mistura told reporters after his meeting with the Minister for Land Reforms and Management Prabhu Narayan Chaudhari.

 

Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) Subash Nemwang
(File Photo)

After meeting Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) Subash Nemwang and the Parliamentary Committee for Monitoring Dialogue Process and Ceasefire, de Mistura added that the “eight-point agreement” between the SPA and Maoists could be the “starting point” to reach a consensus on any issue, including arms management.

“The UN mission has still got three days and eight hours to do its work and I have been urging everyone to come to a common point within this time-frame. Hopefully, we will get from all sides an understanding on a minimum common denominator which will help us to present to the UN Secretary General the position of Nepal regarding the arms management issue,” he added.

Nemwang said that the lawmakers had discussed with UN “the implementation of the eight-point agreement for management of arms and armies.”

The UN mission also proposed a model for management of arms during its meeting with the all party Peace Committee headed by NC general secretary Ram Chandra Poudel.

According to the model proposed by the UN, weapons of scattered barracks of the Nepali Army would be placed in a unified camp with a similar arrangement for the rebels.

However the government and the Maoist negotiators are still not sure about what they want from the UN.

 

 

Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Pradip Gyawali (File Photo)

After a meeting between the government and Maoist negotiators at the Peace Secretariat, Minister Pradip Gyawali, a member of the government’s talks team, said they discussed the issue of arms management and they would be able to come up with a common stance on it in three days.

Minister Gyawali also said that there was no decision regarding holding the summit talks between the government and the Maoists previously scheduled for July 21 but later postponed for more homework.

However, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, leader of the Maoist talks team, said talks with the UN team would be held as per “our understanding” and they still had time to think over it.

The UN team led by de Mistura is in Nepal at the request of the government of Nepal to assess how the world body can help Nepal peace process and arms management during the proposed elections of the constituent assembly.