High-level officials from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) and the Nepali government have reached an understanding to meet the requirements of the CPN-M combatants living in cantonments, local newspaper The Himalayan Times reported Sunday.

Minister for Information and Communication and CPN-M spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara, together with Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Ramchandra Poudel and Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula held a meeting Saturday at the Prime Minister's residence at Baluwatar in Kathmandu.

Sources said PM Girija Prasad Koirala briefly attended the meeting and asked the ministers to settle the issue, who agreed to provide monthly 3,000 Nepali rupees (around 45.8 U.S. dollars) to each of the 30,852 combatants living in the camps.

Poudel is expected to make an announcement on Sunday to assure that the Nepali government will provide allowances to CPN-M armed personnel.

A five-member minister-level panel also held a meeting on Saturday morning and decided that temporary shelters would be built in the camps before the start of the rainy season, the report said.

Earlier on Saturday, CPN-M chairman Prachanda warned of declaring nationwide general strike from Sunday if the government didn't take any initiatives for the management of cantonment sites.

Some 30,852 CPN-M men lived in the camps with poor facilities due to shortage of funds from the government.

The 28 CPN-M military camps are under the United Nations' monitoring according to a peace deal reached in 2006 between CPN-M, the then ruling Seven-party Alliance and the UN. The deal ended the decade-long violence in the country.

Source: Xinhua