The ongoing peace process has come under severe strain as Prime Minister G P Koirala has been served an ultimatum by the Maoists to finalise the interim constitution by tomorrow.

The ultimatum follows Koirala’s reiteration, backed by Nepali Congress(D) leader and former PM Sher Bahadur Deuba, on Sunday that promulgation of the interim constitution and inclusion of the Maoists in the interim government will be delayed if the issue of the Maoists’ arms was not settled. However, the Maoist leaders insist it is an excuse to defer elections to the constituent assembly scheduled for June.

Even though 70 containers for storing Maoist arms arrived from India today, the process of depositing the arms is yet to begin. Also, the camps for confining the guerrillas are not yet ready,. There is no idea either about the number of UN monitoring teams that have been invited by the government and the Maoists.

Ian Martin, special representative to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said about 35 monitors are likely to arrive here in January.

But the key Maoist ideologue, Baburam Bhattarai, publicly criticised the slow process of the UN. “If the pace of the UN comes in the way of holding elections on schedule, it’s time we say thank you and good bye to them.”

A senior minister described Bhattarai’s statement as “most irresponsible statement and it might deprive the entire peace process of the legitimacy it enjoys”.

Koirala assured his senior colleagues of the coalition that “the Government would not want to be a defaulter in the eyes of the international community by not cooperating with the UN”. He is also believed to have insisted that while he was committed to elections as scheduled, it was linked with the fulfilment of other commitments like cantoning of rebel arms and armies .

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