Big three to take shot at consensus

KATHMANDU, SEP 11 - The top leaders of Nepal Congress, CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) have agreed to begin closed-door informal meeting on Friday to explore the points of compromise on the disputed issues of constitution writing.

They said in the meeting of the Constituent Assembly’s Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (PDCC) on Wednesday that the current modality of talks cannot ensure a breakthrough and that there should be serious discussions on the issues of federalism, forms of governance, judiciary and electoral system. As per the agreement, each party head will be allowed to include another leader from their party in the negotiation process that is set to begin from Friday.  

Cross-party leaders said since the number of attending leaders in the ongoing three-party meetings are high, the closed-door meeting will allow the leaders to hold discussions on the key contentious issues of constitution writing in unhindered manner.

The PDCC meeting also discussed about seeking more time to settle the contentious issues. Noting that it will require at least three more weeks to conclude talks with CPN-Maoist, the UCPN (Maoist) has proposed that the time should be extended accordingly.

NC leaders, however, say that 7-10 days time will suffice to forge consensus on contentious issues and CA calendar should be extended accordingly. NC leader Krishna Prasad Situala said the political parties should not demand for a longer extension as it could affect the CA calendar.

Meanwhile, CPN-UML has proposed that the agreement on extending the deadline should be decided after seeing how the talks among the parties progress until September 15. 

The leaders of the three parties have said that they will take the decision after the talks with the CPN-Maoist on Thursday.

The purpose of talks is to finalise the modality and nitty-gritty of all-party conference as well as date. PDCC resumed talks with major parties in an effort to forge consensus on key contentious issues of constitution writing. PDCC Chairman Baburam Bhattarai held talks with top leaders of major three parties asking them to intensify talks to forge consensus on contentious issues, though it may not be possible to reach a final agreement before the talks with CPN-Maoist concludes