An extract from an interview with Maoist supremo Prachanda:

We still stick to our old stand about a peace dialogue and a political solution to the problem. Everyone is aware that we attempted a dialogue with the then Deuba government based on our 40-point demand prior to initiating the historical 'people's war'. Instead the government inflicted state-terror.

Principally, we were never against dialogue. Last year we observed a ceasefire for three months and sat down for a dialogue but the government took advantage of our flexibility and tried to stage a drama that could never reach a political consensus and tried to crush the people's war. We retaliated and reached where we are today. The present government says that it is open for dialogue. We are positive about talks, and have made this public. But the state has not stopped killing people, therefore, we have not stopped our resistance.

We believe the people will not be satisfied with the achievement of the 1990 movement. We have to further empower them. The initial steps towards that end are our demands for an interim government and the election of a constituent assembly. We don't see any reason why our demands should be opposed. We are very surprised by the statement of some of the UML leaders. It shows they don't have faith in the intelligence of the great Nepali people to draft a suitable constitution for themselves.

Obviously we favour a political dialogue for a forward-looking solution to avoid the possibility of a civil war. But if forces want to crush the people's war by using dialogue as a pretext, then we will not let that happen. Making the people sovereign in the real sense can be the only solution to the present problem.