Tuesday, July 25 2006 10:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kathmandu: Maoist chief Prachanda today (July 25, 2006) wrote to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan raising serious objections to the 'unilateral' letter sent by Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to the world body for decommissioning the rebels' arms and monitoring the ceasefire.

But the CPN-Maoist President also said he was willing to cooperate with the visiting UN mission and lauded the role played by the world body in favour of democracy and peace.

Prachanda lodged strong protest and disagreement over certain points in Koirala's July 2 letter to Annan asking UN's arms monitoring assistance, saying, "the letter was written and sent unilaterally without consulting the Maoists, which is a violation of the eight-point agreement."

"Such arbitrary and unilateral application of two different yardsticks to the two armies is highly objectionable and totally unacceptable to us," Prachanda said.

Particularly, any talk of 'decommissioning' of arms of only the People's Liberation Army of the Maoists before polls to the constituent assembly is just unthinkable, he added.

Koirala's letter provocatively talks of assisting in the monitoring of the combatants of the Maoists and decommissioning of their arms but it calls for the UN to monitor to assure that the Nepal Army is inside barracks, Prachanda said.

The Maoist chief assured to cooperate with the UN mission which is visiting Kathmandu in a couple of days.

"He also lauded the positive role played so far by the UN in favour of democracy, peace and progress," Maoist sources said.