EU urges Nepal’s Maoists to disarm before elections
The European Union has urged Nepal’s Maoist rebels to disarm before constituent assembly elections due next year. “No political party can go to elections with a gun on its shoulder,” Neena Gill, leader of the European Parliament Monitoring Mission to Nepal, told a media conference here on Friday. “The Maoists are not keen to disarm before elections to a constituent assembly, but we have found that they are keen to join a multi-party system. The European Union would encourage them not to carry arms,” Gill said at the end of a six-day trip to the troubled Himalayan nation. Full Story