KATHMANDU: The three political parties are reluctant to hold a meeting of the High Level Political Mechanism, which is expected to settle all contentious issues. Even when they do hold one, the parties stick to their stances, making it ever difficult for them to sort out the issues.

The mechanism, which comprises top brasses of the three major parties, has held only three meetings after the death of its coordinator Girija Prasad Koirala on March 20. It, however, has been unable to make any marked progress despite its commitment to have the new constitution by May 28 and form the State Restructuring Commission (SRC).

Though the leaders of the three parties had assured the people that they would meet more often after the mechanism's meeting on April 2, they are yet to make good their promise.

The panel's meeting earlier held at the Parliamentary Party office of the Nepali Congress on March 31 had agreed to finalise the issues of forming the restructuring commission and preparing a time-bound work schedule to settle the issues one by one.

However, the April-2 meting at the CPN-UML's parliamentary party office failed to decide on the previous commitments.

NC and UML leaders accuse the Maoists of deliberately delaying consensus by proposing a package deal. The deal includes forming a national unity government.

However, the NC and the UML have not shown their readiness to talk on the issue of changing hte present coalition government.

Maoist leaders, on the other hand, accuse the NC and UML of not being serious in settling all crucial issues in totality and still trying to bypass the UCPN-M.

"The HLPM meetings have not been fruitful as the parties' stances on the contentious issues are sticking points. We - the three parties - had made an understanding to hold bilateral dialogues with the UCPN-M to find solutions. There have been few rounds of talks informally, however, there has not been any progress on the issues," said NC leader Dr Ram Sharan Mahat.

"We discussed forming the state restructuring commission many times, but there has not been any progress on it.

Therefore, until the parties are ready to be flexible, holding an HLPM meet will make no sense," Dr Mahat said. He added that the Maoists were not serious about settling the issues.

UCPN-M leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha 'Prakash' said, "We had made an understanding to sort out issues through bilateral meetings. Although the UCPN-M is making efforts during bilateral meetings with NC and UML leaders, issues have not been talked seriously about in such meetings."