While the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) have been obstructing the process of army integration by defending the violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and Maoist rebels on 22 November 2006, outgoing Chief of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) Ian Martin urged Nepal government to accelerate the process of army integration for not letting Nepal’s process derail at any cost.
Especially, the NC has repeatedly and publicly vowed not to let the army integration take place.The peace agreement contains this integration component.
At a time when the NC and the UML have been instigating Nepal Army to violate the peace agreement, Martin made this request on Sunday morning when he met with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda at his official residence in Kathmandu.
According to Prime Minister Prachanda’s foreign affairs advisor Hira Bahadur Thapa, Prime Minister Prachanda is understood to have assured Martin that things would go ahead smoothly should the major political forces of the country honestly respect the Nepalis’ aspirations for peace with transformative opportunities.
Prime Minister Prachanda is also learnt to have told Martin that if major forces in the country in this or that pretext cannot accept people’s desire to have vast changes would not contribute to the peace process.
European Union ambassadors had met with the prime minister on Saturday to learn about the worsening condition of the peace process due to disputes between “progressives” and “regressives”.