Kathmandu, March 3:

The Peace Secretariat, which was established three years ago, has been providing logistical and professional support for the restoration of peace in the country.

Spokesperson for the Peace Secretariat, Ramesh Kumar Sharma, said the setting up of the secretariat has paid dividends.

He said the secretariat is now concentrating on resolving the Tarai issue. “We are in touch with parties concerned. We will try to find a meeting point for the political actors,” Sharma told this daily.

He claimed that the secretariat has evolved as a think tank at a time when assorted organisations come up with sundry demands and call bandhs, leaving the ruling establishment in a quandary.

Since the political parties and the talks teams do not understand technical aspects, the secretariat tries to convince them to make the CA polls more inclusive by providing them information on various systems, Sharma said.

The secretariat is involved in almost everything with which the eight-party alliance is associated. This was proved last Thursday when the eight-party task force met to decide on the electoral system. The secretariat, he said, had identified 34 countries and based on experience of those countries, presented its suggestions to the eight political parties. The parties agreed on the electoral system to be followed here based on secretariat’s suggestions, he said.

Stressing the need for post-conflict management, Sharma said equal emphasis should be laid on rehabilitation, reconstruction and reconciliation. Else, the peace process would be derailed, he warned. “We just came up with a list of options. The final decision that the nation should go for a parallel electoral system was decided by the task force of the eight parties on Thursday.”

He said professionals associated with the organisation study an immense body of literature from all over the world, then summarise everything to a few pages to facilitate quicker decision-making. “We go through literature from too many countries with similar conflicts before bringing all that down to flip charts for the benefit of political negotiators.”