Kathmandu, February 24:

Leaders of the seven-party alliance and the Maoist said today that political honesty and mutual trust were more important than the number of weapons to proceed with the peace process, the aim of which is to hold an election to a constituent assembly in mid-June.

“It is less important how many weapons the Maoists may have kept outside the cantonments. What is most important is the Maoists’ political honesty and trust so as to hold the constituent assembly election in a peaceful atmosphere,” Nepali Congress leader Dr Shekhar Koirala said at the Reporters’ Club.

Commenting on Friday’s UNMIN report that made public the details of 3,428 weapons registered at the Maoist cantonments, Dr Koirala, who is a close aide to PM GP Koirala, said: “Whatever weapons are found outside the cantonments will be deemed illegal as per the accord on arms management.”

He said the SPA had agreed to provide high-level security to rebel leaders Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai and other central committee members as their life is still in “danger from regressive forces.”

He said the date for the constituent assembly election could not be announced unless the Maoist join the interim government.

Maoist leader Dinanath Sharma said there was an agreement between the SPA and the Maoists to form an interim government once the process of arms registration started.

“But the process of forming the interim government is still a distant possibility even after the registration of arms has completed.”

He said that the Nepali Army needs to be democratised while the PLA needs to be professionalised so that they can be assimilated in the national force.

Deputy-commander of the Maoist PLA Nanda Kishor Pun (Pasang) said, “We have registered all the weapons, mines, socket bombs and other explosives that we had. We have registered more weapons than details given by the state to the UNMIN”.

CPN-UML leader Bamdev Gautam said that the alliance must believe in the weapons registered by the Maoists, as political confidence was more important than the others.

Dr Minendra Rijal of the NC (D) said that his party would have no problem as long as the PM, UNMIN and the Nepali people believed that the Maoists had honestly given details of the weapons that they held.

Military expert Dr Indrajit Rai lamented that the leaders did not follow the one-man-one-weapon principle while reaching an accord on arms management.