UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's personal representative to Nepal Ian Martin in an interview with Navin Singh Khadka of the BBC Nepali Service, 26 August.

BBC Nepali: Why can't the UN immediately start monitoring arms and military personnel of the Maoists and the Nepali army even after there has been an agreement to keep both the armies in certain areas?
Ian Martin: There has been an agreement in very general terms. That general agreement has to be turned into much more specific commitments and an understanding as to how the United Nations can verify those commitments.

What kind of specific commitments?
There are many more aspects of arms and armies' management that have to be defined before the United Nations can plan its actual monitoring mission. We have to be clear on how many locations are going to be involved with how many troops in each of them. Only than can we, with the parties, plan the kind of monitoring that is needed.

So when do you think you can actually start monitoring the arms and military personnel?
I can't answer that yet because that doesn't just depend upon the United Nations, that would depend upon the parties as well. I will be starting the task of continuing discussions from the moment of my return to Kathmandu next week. But when actual monitoring will begin is a question I can't answer immediately.

There are rising concerns on how the UN civil staff will be able to monitor thousands of armed military personnel.
The letters indeed from the prime minister and the Maoist leadership asks for the deployment of qualified civilian personnel, that's specified in their requests. There are other cases where civilian personnel, in some cases former military in their backgrounds have been involved in monitoring arms and armies in the context of peace processes. We have to see how that can be suitably tailored to the context of Nepal. But it's the parties that have specified that they wish to see this done by civilian personnel.

Why did the previous arms management UN assessment team-leader Stefan de Mistura meet Indian officials in New Delhi before and after his visit to Nepal?
Obviously India is a major stakeholder and the United Nations regularly consults other governments that have a major interest in a particular situation. So, indeed the United Nations has remained in close communication with India and I shall certainly do that too.