Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Nepal

Nepal's indigenous leaders demand all-sides roundtable to address issues

Kathmandu, February 27: Leaders of the agitating Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NFIN) sat for talks with government to discuss their issues and ways to address them, on Monday, but without reaching any specific conclusion.

It is learnt that the NFIN negotiators declined to accept the request of the government side to suspend the ongoing protests being carried out by the NFIN. They are learnt to have demanded a multi-sides roundtable to address the outstanding issues of all marginalized sections.

NFIN coordinator Dr Om Gurung told reporters that the indigenous groups would continue dialogue and demonstrations side by side.

Leaders of the communities fighting for indigenous rights hinted that the government side was positive about the NFIN demands that preparations to amend the interim constitution be stopped until the dialogue between the government and agitating groups reached conclusion.

They said talks would be held also on March 2, when each sides would involve their facilitators too.

The NFIN demands include ethnicity-based federal system, proportional representation of indigenous nationalities in the Constituent Assembly polls and linguistic freedom, among others.