SPA, guerrillas sit for summit talks in Nepal

The much awaited summit talks between the ruling Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the guerrillas have just started at 4 pm local time (1015 GMT) at residence of Nepali Prime Minister's residence at Baluwater, northern part of Kathmandu.

The top SPA leadership and the guerrillas leaders are participating in the talks. A large number of journalists and ordinary people have gathered around the PM residence with an immense curiosity.

The talks are expected to finalize all pending issues including interim constitution, interim parliament, interim government and arms management.

Both sides have already stated that they agreed on the most crucial arms management as well as on other political issues too. So, the talks are expected to give positive result with signing of the agreements.

However, SPA partners Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist- Leninist) and Nepali Congress (Democratic) have expressed dissatisfaction over the Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's high-handedness in decision making, saying that they were not informed about final consensus on arms management.

The UML leaders criticized both Prime Minister and guerilla leader for not taking consensus while agreeing on political issues and issue of management in the party's standing committee meeting on Monday morning.

The UML was in favor of deciding the monarchy's fate through the referendum but the Prime Minister and guerrillas agreed to decide on the issue by the first meeting of the constituent assembly.

On the other hand, NC (D) was in favor of complete disarmament with double lock system to the stored weapons of the guerrillas. However, the PM made agreement on single lock system.

Source: Xinhua