KATHMANDU: The stalled peace negotiations between Nepal’s government and Maoist rebels are likely to restart by mid- August, though where it will proceed from there is anybody’s guess.

Minister and government negotiator Kamal Thapa said he hopes to sit down with the Maoist negotiators sometime in mid-August to thrash out contentious issues.

Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a facilitator of the talks who is considered close to the rebels, also said that the Maoist leadership had indicated its willingness to start the talks in two weeks.

Analysts say everything will depend on the government’s political agenda, which it has promised to lay on the table during the third round.

“The rebels have specifically asked to see the government’s political agenda on how it envisages Nepal’s political future. The negotiations very much depend on it,” says Shyam Shrestha, an analyst of the Maoist insurgency.

As suspicions linger on the fate of the talks, for now at least, most Nepalis are rejoicing the continuation of the peace process.

The peace process was on the verge of collapse last week as the rebels, who have once again gone underground, and the government raised the rhetoric in a bid to corner each other.

“We were already getting used to peace and suddenly the talks looked like it would collapse,” Sita Adhikari, a Kathmandu housewife, says. “But now we can have some more months of peace at least.”

Even donor governments sound relieved. “We have programmes running in 54 districts. If the violence started, we would have had no choice but to cut back on our activities and stay holed up in Kathmandu,” the chief of a western development agency said.

The current optimism came last Thursday, on the last day of an ultimatum issued by the Maoists. The rebel chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, issued a statement on that day pledging to stay on the peace course. But he warned that everything would depend on how the government behaves.

Prachanda also urged the government to henceforth include major political parties in the peace negotiations.

The parties are currently outside the talks, protesting King Gyanendra’s installation of what they call “an illegal and unconstitutional” government after sacking an elected one last year in October.

Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa said on Friday that he would actively court the political parties to join the peace process.

“I will go to all the political leaders and plead with them. The government will not leave any stone unturned.”

But the parties are in no mood to grant legitimacy to a royally-handpicked government by joining the peace talks.

“There is no question of us joining the peace talks in its current form,” says Madhav Kumar Nepal, leader of the largest political party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist). “The King must first sack the government, and revive the dissolved parliament and call on us, the parties, to form another government before we can sit down in the talks.”

He however said that despite the reservations, the opposition parties hoped the peace process would continue.

Since the government and rebels struck a ceasefire agreement in late January, the two sides have sat down for two rounds of peace negotiations.

In the last round in May, both sides reportedly agreed to limit the movement of the Royal Nepal Army to within a five- kilometre perimeter from the barracks in a bid to minimise chances of confrontation.

But the agreement has not been carried out because the government says it only discussed the issue, not agreed to it. The Maoists are adamant that the agreement be stuck to. They also called on the government to release three of their top jailed leaders.

The differences became so great that the Maoists’ chief negotiator, Dr Baburam Bhattarai, issued an ultimatum on Sunday last week, giving the government five days to respond to its core demands, or face the breaking off of the ceasefire.

The government responded within two days, immediately releasing the jailed Maoist leaders, and agreeing to hold further discussions to resolve the contentious army patrol agreement. It also said, as demanded by the rebels, that it would henceforth delve into the core political issues behind the conflict, ranging from political reforms to Nepal’s being a constitutional monarchy.—Dawn/InterPress News Service.