Nepal's PM, rebel envoy meet to start peace talks

NEPAL: Nepal's prime minister and a top rebel envoy agreed to an informal meeting between the sides Friday to launch peace talks aimed at ending the Himalayan nation's decade-long conflict, a government official said.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala met at his official residence with Krishna Mahara, head of the three-member rebel negotiating team, and agreed to start the talks with an informal meeting between the sides later Friday, Civil Aviation Minister Pradeep Gyawali said.

Friday's meeting would likely decide on the agenda and code of conduct for the talks, said Gyawali, a member of the government's peace team. However, the venue of the meeting had not yet been decided, he said.

Nepal's new government, which took office after King Gyanendra agreed to relinquish his control over the administration last month, has made substantial moves toward peace with the rebels.

It has released hundreds of rebels from jail, dropped terrorism charges against them, and matched a rebel cease-fire. It also has agreed to rewrite the constitution, a key rebel demand that crippled the earlier peace talks.

Meanwhile support for retaining Hinduism as a state religion in Nepal, where the king is revered by some as the deity Vishnu, remains strong.

A strike called by religious activists in the south Thursday to protest the government's decision to end Nepal's status as the world's last Hindu kingdom crippled normal life, police said.

"All the shops, businesses and educational institutions closed their shutters and the highways were deserted in Birgunj," the town's police chief Bir Bahadur Rana told AFP.

"The activists have called for a general strike today and have begun obstructing the traffic by burning tyres. Police have been mobilized around the city to thwart any kind of violence," said Rana.

Demonstrators descended on Birgunj, 275 kilometres (170 miles) south of Kathmandu, from the capital and neighbouring India, police said.

On Wednesday protesters blocked roads with burning tyres, closed shops and ransacked a newspaper van before torching its contents because it backed the new government's proclamation of a secular state.

A smaller protest was held in Kathmandu where 100 people, including Hindu holy men, were stopped by police near parliament but blocked the road and demanded the government reverse their decision.

Kathmandu, Friday, AP, AFP