Kathmandu, July 28:

Maoist chairman Prachanda today said that only the new government should represent the country in the forthcoming 15th SAARC summit in Sri Lanka on August 2-3.

“The caretaker government cannot represent the country,” he said, adding that only new government should represent the country in the regional summit.

Prachanda made this remark while emerging from the 25-party meeting held in the office of his parliamentary party in Singha Durbar.

He said they would take the initiative to form the government from tomorrow and that the new government would send representatives to the summit.

Another round of meeting of the 25 parties representing the Constituent Assembly will take place tomorrow morning, he said.

Prachanda said his party would come up with a concrete proposal about the formation of the national government in a separate meeting to be held among the four major parties.

“But we will not take initiatives to lead the government if the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum give continuity to the so-called democratic alliance,”

he said.

Leaders of the three parties had told the CPN-Maoist that the alliance had been forged only for the election of President, Vice-President and CA chairman, he said, adding that his party’s three agendas were not preconditions.

NC, UML and MJF leaders, who took part in the 25-party meeting, said they had asked the Maoist leadership to come up with a concrete proposal on the formation of national government. But they did not say whether they would dissolve the three-party democratic alliance.

Meanwhile, CPN-Maoist and UML leaders held talks this evening to explore the possibility of forming a new government.

UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari said they had agreed to review why the understanding between the two parties that had reached a final stage was broken all of a sudden.

Adhikari said his party was still insisting on forming a national government and asked the Maoist leadership to come up with a proposal for the formation of such a government.