Nepal's bid to buy 5.56 mm assault rifles from Belgium's Fabrique Nationale (FN), has become controversial in Brussels, leading to the resignation of a cabinet minister. The Belgian government defends the sale of more than 5,000 machine guns to Nepal saying that the Nepali authorities need the weapons to fight the Maoist insurgency. But politicians from other Belgian parties, including Minister for Health and Environment Magda Aelvoet, who resigned over the deal, claim that the sale could infringe on a 1991 law that bans export of weapons to countries engaged in a civil war. They have demanded an urgent parliamentary debate on the deal.