KATHMANDU: Hard bargaining and a lack of trust between Nepal’s Maoist rebels and the multi-party government have slowed a peace process aimed at ending the Himalayan nation’s long civil war.

But both sides remain committed to peace talks and ironing out differences because they are reluctant to risk popular anger and fresh unrest in a country that has lurched from one crisis to another for years, officials and analysts said.

“There is mistrust within the political parties on the one hand and between the political parties and Maoists on the other, which is delaying talks,” said Lok Raj Baral of the Nepal Centre for Contemporary Studies, a private think-tank.

“The Maoists suspect the government is trying to maintain status quo while the political parties fear the Maoist arms would dominate them,” he said. “They have to come out of this, change their mindset and follow their agreements.”

The rebels and the interim government, made up of Nepal’s seven main political parties, agreed to a truce and held their first peace talks in three years in May after King Gyanendra — bowing to weeks of violent protests — gave up absolute power.

Under a power-sharing deal struck in June, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala agreed to include the Maoists in an interim government. Both sides also agreed to confine their armies to barracks or camps under UN supervision.

The government also curtailed most of the king’s powers and conceded a key Maoist demand — elections for a special assembly to draw up a new constitution and review the monarchy’s future.

But three months on, the euphoria has evaporated. The two sides are still wrangling over the nuts and bolts of the peace process, and they have failed to announce a date for a meeting between Koirala and Maoist chief Prachanda to implement the deal.

The Maoists have pledged to accept the outcome of the assembly vote even if it is against turning Nepal into the republic they have been fighting for since 1996, a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people.

But the government says the rebels must disarm their 35,000-strong guerrilla force before they join the cabinet. The Maoists refuse, saying the government is setting new conditions.

The rebels have threatened to launch fresh street protests crippling Kathmandu and other cities if the power-sharing deal is not honoured.

Already, Kathmandu has begun to see small but regular protests by the Maoists and groups of ordinary Nepalese to pressure the government.

“Unless there is an agreement on political matters, including the interim government, there will be no progress in settling the issue of our arms,” Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara said.

The main political matters, according to Mahara, are the drafting of an interim constitution which gives the king no role and subsequently forming an interim parliament and government.

The government says it is committed to its pact with the Maoists, but political parties are yet to reach a consensus on the Maoist demand for the abolition of the monarchy in the interim constitution rather than wait for the national vote.

Nevertheless, officials said the government and rebels — under pressure to end the conflict — were in touch informally, and analysts say much of the talk about a stalemate is posturing.

“They are only showing their might to get maximum concessions in negotiations,” said Shiva Gaunle, an editor with the Nepali magazine Himal. “The talks have not reached a frustrating point yet.”

The rebels, who have vowed not to return to war that has wrecked the aid- and tourism-dependent economy, indicated as much when spokesman Mahara said they did not intend to desert peace talks like they did in 2001 and 2003.

“I don’t think the talks will break,” he said. “They are only in a crisis.”—Reuters