UNMIN wants consensus for logistics handover

KATHMANDU, Jan 13: UNMIN on Thursday said it would be able to neither loan nor transfer its arms and armies monitoring equipment to the Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants in the absence of an agreement between the government and the UCPN (Maoist) on a future mechanism for supervising the Nepal Army, Maoist combatants and their arms.

Replying to one after another request for UN monitoring equipment and logistics, UNMIN chief Karin Landgren wrote to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, reinforcing the UN position on loaning or handing over the equipment and logistics used by UNMIN for monitoring arms and armies.

"UN Headquarters requires clarity on follow-on monitoring arrangements before they will approve loan or hand over of the monitoring equipment," said an UNMIN official about Landgren´s letter to the government on Thursday.

Though the letter has been addressed to the prime minister, the outgoing UNMIN chief has sent carbon copies to Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Peace and Reconstruction Minister Rakam Chemjong and to all the members on the Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants.

Though UNMIN had made clear the UN conditions for loaning or handing over the monitoring assets in mid-December, the UN political mission was compelled to write another letter with the same spirit after it received four requests for the logistics that the Special Committee plans to use to monitor the Maoist combatants and their arms locked in containers.

The letter means that the government will have to send yet another request after forging an agreement with the UCPN (Maoist) latest by Saturday if it continues to want the monitoring equipment and logistics.

In the latest letter to UNMIN on Wednesday, the government had made it clear that the Special Committee would monitor the Maoist combatants and use the monitoring equipment besides saying that the Committee had on December 19 decided unanimously to request the equipment and logistics.

UNMIN chief Landgren had said Monday at a press conference that her office would start withdrawing monitoring equipment from the cantonment sites from midnight of Saturday when the UNMIN´s term ends.

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=27134