Nepal parties to meet on Constitution drafting

Nepal's ruling and opposition parties today agreed to convene a national conference next week to sort out differences over contentious issues in drafting the Constitution within the stipulated time-frame of January 22.
A meeting of the four-party taskforce today decided to convene the National Political Conference on September 16 as per the demand of the CPN-Maoist and some fringe parties that had boycotted the November's election.
The ruling parties -- Nepali Congress and CPN-UML -- have agreed to the demand put forth by the Maoist party for the proposed conference in order to motivate the dissenting parties to take part in the Constitution drafting process.

The taskforce included representatives from four political parties -- Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, UCPN-Maoist and CPN-Maoist.
The taskforce was assigned to finalise the date after a meeting of the four major parties held last week had failed to forge agreement on the date.
According to the Nepali Congress leader and Constituent Assembly member Amresh Kumar Singh, the meeting will be held in the Constituent Assembly building complex in Kathmandu.
According to Singh, all the political parties representing in the Constituent Assembly, that also functions as the Parliament and 33-party alliance led by CPN-Maoist will take part in the conference.
Nepal's Constituent Assembly has prepared a calendar to accomplish the task of promulgating the new Constitution by January 22 next year.