Nepal Cabinet to be named once rebel arms sealed - PM

NEPAL: Nepal's Maoists will only be included in an interim government after their arms are locked in stores under U.N. supervision, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said on Monday.

Last month, the government and Maoist guerrillas signed a landmark peace deal declaring an end to a decade-old conflict in which more than 13,000 people died.

The deal envisaged the Maoists joining an interim cabinet and confining their fighters to camps, as well as locking arms in containers monitored by the United Nations.

But uncertainty over the storage of weapons and jockeying between the rebels and the political parties meant a Dec. 1 deadline for the Maoists to join the interim government was missed.

"The interim government will be formed after the arms management. There will also be an interim parliament then," the 85-year-old Koirala said on Nepal Television.

Koirala said elections for a special assembly to map the impoverished Himalayan nation's political future, draft a new constitution and decide the fate of the monarchy would be held in June 2007.

But the Maoists said linking the interim cabinet to the completion of the U.N. monitoring mission - especially when the global body had not set a specific timeframe - could delay not only the formation of the new government, but also the elections.

"This is against the agreement and understanding between us and the government," senior Maoist leader Dev Gurung, a rebel negotiator, said.

Kathmandu, Monday, Reuters