During the meeting between the two leaders on Wednesday, Dahal requested the prime minister to agree to extend UNMIN’s term once again, which was flatly rejected by the prime minister.[break]
Prime Minister Nepal instead chided Maoist Chairman Dahal for writing a letter to the UN unilaterally requesting extension of UNMIN’s term.
“Why have you forgotten that two of us signed an agreement on September 13 to extend the UNMIN’s term for the last time and the government sent a letter to the UN accordingly?” Prime Minister Nepal asked Dahal, according to a Baluwatar source. Furious, Prime Minister further said, “Why are you working to belittle Nepal in the eyes of international community by being so inconsistent.”
According to a source, Dahal was on the defensive after the prime minister’s outburst and urged him to call a three-party meeting to decide about UNMIN’s future.
“Why have you forgotten that two of us signed an agreement on September 13 to extend the UNMIN’s term for the last time and the government sent a letter to the UN accordingly?”
But the prime minister said there was no point discussing the issue of UNMIN’s term extension and told Dahal that he would convene a three-party meet to discuss post-UNMIN arrangements necessary to bring the PLA combatants under the Special Committee.
Accordingly, the prime minister has called a meeting of the three major parties at 3 pm, Thursday at Singha Durbar. The meeting is expected to discuss giving full shape to the Secretariat and bringing PLA combatants under the command of the Special Committee, according to the prime minister’s press advisor Bishnu Rijal.
The Maoists have been demanding extension of UNMIN’s term till May 28 -- the deadline to promulgate the new constitution -- and have actively lobbied for the same. The Maoist even sent a unilateral request to the UN Security Council to this effect as the government flatly rejected the Maoist demand arguing that they had already written to the UNSC in September last year stating that the current extension would be the “last” one.
On Tuesday evening, the prime minister had held a separate meeting with Maoist Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai to discuss ways to expedite the management of cantoned combatants.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Special Committee on Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist combatants scheduled for Wednesday afternoon was put off after a Maoist member in the committee, Barshaman Pun expressed his inability to attend the meeting. Pun left for New Delhi Wednesday afternoon to take part in the two-day Nepal Seminar beginning Thursday.
The prime minister was scheduled to hold discussions among Special Committee members on giving full shape to the Secretariat in order to take up the roles being taken by UNMIN so far.
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