The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (CPN-M) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) have asked the caretaker government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to call off his proposed visit to Sri Lanka to attend the 15th SAARC summit. The Maoists have raised serious objections saying, “only a new government should represent the country at the SAARC meet, failing which the summit should be called off”.“We will seek the intervention of the Constituent Assembly on Wednesday and stop Koirala from participating in the summit,” C P Gajurel, Maoist leader and in-charge of the party’s foreign affairs, said. UML leader Madhav Nepal on Tuesday asked Koirala to instead send President Rambaran Yadav to represent the country.“We might form the Government in the next two to three days and an elected Prime Minister can represent the country,” Baburam Bhattarai said. It is believed that Prachanda and Bhattarai have also asked Sri Lankan ambassador Sumit Nakandala that his Government should not entertain Koirala as the head of Nepal Government.However, Nepal’s failure to participate in the summit will lead to the cancellation of the summit at the last minute which will result in wastage of an estimated Rs 2 billion that the island nation has spent on security, hospitality and other preparations for the summit. What’s more, some of the Foreign Affairs ministers and secretaries have already reached Colombo to take part in the agenda and ministerial-level meetings.
