Although the date for the second round of talks between the Nepali government and the guerrillas of Nepal is yet to be fixed, the members of the two sides' talks teams have said the second round of peace talks will be held "soon ".

After the failed round of talks between the two sides in 2003, the representatives of the government and the guerrillas once again sat for negotiations nine days ago. But the context and the environment were vastly different between the talks. The guerrillas had talked with representatives of the king's government in 2003, they are now face to face with the government of political parties that has been restored following historic people's movement.

More importantly, the major demand of the guerrillas to go for election of Constituent Assembly (CA) to write a new constitution has already been met by the restored House of Representatives (HoR) , or the parliament. The issue for negotiation this time is to agree upon the political process that will lead to the CA.

However, the peace process is getting more and more complicated. The guerrillas have started demanding that the parliament be dissolved. Claiming that their contribution was instrumental in making the recent people's movement successful, the guerrillas' spokesperson and its chief negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara said.

The guerrillas would join the interim government formed by the conference, which would also write interim statute, Mahara added.

But there is no buyer among the other seven political parties about the guerrillas demand for the dissolution of the parliament. This parliament must not be dissolved at any cost. This parliament is the only legitimate place that can reflect people's opinion," said Sushil Koirala, vice president of Nepali Congress (NC), the second largest political party of Seven Party Alliance (SPA) which leads the present government of Nepal.

The Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), another key partner of SPA, has also rejected the demand outright. "In the absence of alternative, this parliament cannot be replaced," said Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the CPN- UML.

Since the parliament was restored after a long struggle, the SPA are not going to give in to the demands for its dissolution so easily. On the other hand, the guerrillas seem to suspect that by declaring the parliament as sovereign and supreme, the SPA may be trying to steal all the credit for the latest political change of the country. The facts are: the guerrillas have no representation in the current parliament and the political parties have declared the parliament as the supreme body.

"The SPA fears that if the parliament is dissolved at this juncture, there would be a political vacuum, which could work in favor of the guerrillas," said Sanjay Dhakal, senior reporter of a local Spotlight English weekly magazine.

The issue of disarming the guerrillas' militia has also generated heated debates. While the political parties, civil society and the international community believe that the guerrillas militia must lay down arms before election for CA is held, the guerrillas contend that both their militia and Nepalese Army (NA) be put under United Nations supervision till then.

"These two issues are likely to be the major stumbling blocks as the peace talks proceed in the coming days," Dhakal added.

The first round of peace talks between the government and the guerrillas was, indeed, able to finalize a widely appreciated cease-fire code of conduct that has ascertained points that would be abided by both sides to maintain peace and security across the country.

The talks team, which was led by Home Minister Krishna Sitaula on the government side and by Krishna Mahara on the guerrillas side, endorsed 25-point code of conduct during the first round of talks held on May 26.

One of the major breakthroughs of the dialogue was the acceptance by both sides to go for the election of CA. This was the key issue that led to breakdown of talks twice during the talks held in 2001 and 2003 separately.

Every breakdown of talks was followed by intensification of violence. This time, however, there is a genuine belief among large sections of people that the peace talks would succeed. The reason is that an understanding was reached between the guerrillas and the SPA in November 2005 in which the SPA have accepted, in principle, the demand for CA. "In fact, this time our peace talks is just about upgrading the agreement," said Mahara.

The latest round of peace talks has generated hopes among the people. But the issues are far from resolved, he added.

Source: Xinhua