Sunday, January 24, 2010

Maoist calls off general strike in Nepal

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has called off the indefinite general strike scheduled for Sunday.

Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as "Prachanda", issued a statement calling off the strike after Friday's meeting of the High-Level Political Mechanism (HLPM).

The HLPM, formed on January 8, is led by Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala and includes Unified CPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (UML) chairman Jhala Nath Khanal.

The HLPM, which holds its meeting at least once a week, aims to help take the peace process to a logical end, write a constitution on time, end the current political deadlock, remove the state of mistrust among parties by reviewing the status of implementation of all past agreements and end other political woes.

"Since the HLPM initiated discussion on our concerns and decided to give top priority to resolving the political deadlock, we decided to call off the strike for the time being, hoping for a positive outcome from the mechanism," Prachanda said in the statement.

However, Prachanda stated that the ongoing nationwide campaign for national independence and civil supremacy being conducted by his party would continue.

He also warned that the UCPN (Maoist) would be compelled to resume the stalled general strike from a new height if consensus is not forged to end the existing political deadlock.

Source: Xinhua

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