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NEPALGUNJ, Nepal, Monday (AFP) Foul weather Monday delayed the start of the second day of the latest round of peace talks between Nepal's Maoist rebels and government negotiators, which both sides have conceded are already faltering.

The talks were due to get under way mid-morning in the western town of Dang, but the government team said rain was preventing them heading to the rebel stronghold by helicopter from Nepalgunj, where Sunday's first round was held.

By early afternoon, the government team of Finance Minister Prakash Chandra Lohani and Communications and Information Minister Kamal Thapa were still kicking their heels in Nepalgunj, waiting for the downpour to cease.

The venue of the talks was changed, according to government negotiator Kamal Thapa, who is communications and information minister, because the rebels wanted to hold the talks "in secrecy and away from the media".

Sunday's first session at Nepalgunj, on the Indian border about 420 kilometres (260 miles) southwest of Kathmandu, made little headway on key issues, with the rebels rejecting government-proposed constitutional reforms.

The government said that in a bid to make peace with the rebels, who have been waging armed actions for the past seven years in pursuit of their goal of a communist state, it was ready to form an interim government that would include the Maoists.

They also proposed a number of constitutional amendments and political reforms which, however, snub the Maoists' main demand of holding elections to a constituent assembly which would redraft the statute.

Maoist convenor and chief negotiator Baburam Bhattarai told reporters after the first session that the talks "did not proceed as expected."

"They were disappointing, regressive and incomplete," he said.

Government negotiator Thapa, briefing reporters late night Sunday, acknowledged the gap between the government and the rebels on the issue of a constituent assembly but said the talks were aimed at "filling the hole."

"We are still talking, we are ready to talk as long as possible," he said.

The negotiations follow a ceasefire announced on January 29 and two rounds of negotiations held in Kathmandu on April 27 and May 9.

The third session had been stalled partially due to disagreement over what, if anything, was agreed to in the previous rounds.

Last month the rebels threatened to suspend participation in the peace process, demanding that troops be restricted from moving more than five kilometers (three miles) outside their barracks - which the rebels contend the government agreed to at the May talks.

The government refused to budge on the troop restrictions, saying that soldiers only moved so far from their stations in exceptional circumstances.

The issue has led to several bloody clashes, despite the ceasefire.

A cabinet source said Sunday at least 12 Maoist rebels were killed when rebels laucnhed two separate attacks on security force patrols in far-eastern Nepal on Saturday and Sunday.

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