India welcomes Nepal's Maoist integration pact

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) India Thursday welcomed the recent pact under which former Maoist rebels handed over control of their fighters and weapons to the Nepal Army and hoped that "the Nepali-led and Nepali-driven political processes would be taken to their logical end within the time-frame".

"We welcome the agreement reached on April 10 in the constitutionally mandated Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) on taking forward the process of integration and rehabilitation of the former Maoist combatants in consonance with the past agreements," external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said here.

"We congratulate the Nepalese leadership for the wisdom, and spirit of consensus displayed by them to complete the remaining tasks," he said.

"We hope the Nepali-led and Nepali-driven political processes would be taken to their logical end within the time-frame agreed by the political parties, ushering Nepal into a new era of peace and democracy," said the spokesperson.

In a major step forward in Nepal's peace process, the Nepal Army (NA) Tuesday took control of the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA) cantonments, combatants and the weapons stored in containers inside the camps. This followed a decision taken by the all-party Special Committee (SC) for the Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist combatants.