Wednesday, May 24 2006 14:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kathmandu: Laying the ground for substantive talks with the Maoists, Nepal's interim government has named two ministers to hold preliminary talks with the rebels, official sources said.

Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Pradip Gyawali of CPN-UML and Minister of State for Labour and Transport Management Ramesh Lekhak of NC (Democratic) have been included in the talk team, a senior Minister said on condition of anonymity. The team will be lead by Home Minister Krishna Situala.

However, the government is yet to formally announce the talk team.

The talk team members have been announced a day after Chief Maoist negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara stressed on the need to initiate a dialogue with the government at the earliest to resolve the ten year-long armed conflict.

Mahara, who is in Kathmandu leading a three-member preparatory talks team, yesterday met with Nepal Communist Party-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and senior politburo member Amrit Bohara.

During the meeting, the two sides expressed concern over the delay in initiating the talks.

"We discussed ways to creating conducive atmospherefor talks and regarding procedures to move ahead the dialogue process," Bohara said adding any delay in the dialogue process would give chance to sabotage the peace.