In a meeting Wednesday morning with UCPN-M Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, NC leaders rejected his proposal to reach an agreement on the PLA issue by mid-June and asked him to come up with a concrete proposal in two days. [break]
"We have asked him to come with his proposal on the PLA, including the numbers to be included in the Nepal Army, and a detailed time-frame for integration and rehabilitation," said a senior NC leader privy to the dialogue with the Maoist leadership.
"If we can reach an agreement on the PLA issue, the present deadlock will be over. Without it, I don´t see any breakthrough," he said.
What is NC´s preference on the PLA numbers to be integrated in the Nepal Army? "We have to take the army into confidence on this issue and we cannot decide the number independently but there is no way we can integrate more than 3,400 PLA combatants into the national army," he said, adding, "a few thousand additional forces can be accommodated in other security forces."
The NC leaders have also told Dahal that they are open on the leadership issue and that they are not opposed to him. "We have told him the NC is not against his leadership but this issue should be sorted out at the end after an understanding is reached on the six-point agenda," said the NC leader.
Leaders of the Tarai Madhes Democratic Party (TMDP) have met Maoist leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai and assured him of their support as the next prime minister.
The last meeting of the UCPN-M standing committee decided that the question of which party and who should lead the next government will be settled later on.
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