Kathmandu, November 30:

The government and Maoist talks teams continued discussions on the draft of an interim constitution prepared by a panel headed by former Supreme Court justice Laxman Prasad Aryal.

The panel had submitted the draft the talks teams on August 25.

The historic November 8 political agreement between the seven-party alliance and the Maoists had scheduled promulgation of an interim constitution on November 26, but it could not be done so due to lack of time for preparations.

Maoist talks team member Dev Gurung said they held informal point-wise discussions on the preamble, Articles and Clauses of the constitution.

He said the final draft of the constitution would be submitted to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and CPN-Maoist chairman Prachanda for approval after it is finalised at the talks team level.

He said it would take a longer time than expected as they had just started discussions on the Aryal panel’s draft.

He also said that the schedule of forming the Maoist-included interim government had been postponed as they were not able to finalise the interim constitution.

According to the November 8 agreement, the interim government was supposed to come into place on December 1.