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Nepal ensures security for Summit

KATHMANDU, Tuesday (AFP) Nepal has stationed armed guards around the clock, imposed major restrictions on traffic and will deploy helicopters later in the week to guarantee security for South Asian leaders holding the SAARC Summit in the insurgency-rocked kingdom.

Aware of the current attention on the summit, King Gyanendra and Crown Prince Paras have both personally inspected key sites for security and other arrangements, officials said.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are expected to be present.

Camouflage-clad army and police personnel carrying semiautomatic guns were already in the streets of the capital Kathmandu late Monday, four days before the heads of state and government are due to begin talks.

While rising tension between India and Pakistan seems sure to overshadow all else at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, the chief security concern for Nepal's government is the Maoist rebels who broke a ceasefire in November.

"The government has handed over security arrangements to the army and the armed police force to check any acts of terrorism by the Maoist terrorists during the three-day summit," home ministry spokesman Gopendra Bahadur Pandey said.

Even though most Maoist-related violence has taken place outside Kathmandu, security forces have been watching all entry points to the capital "attentively" since the beginning of the week, Pandey said.

Stringent restrictions have been imposed around Tribhuvan International Airport, which only passengers and government officials are being allowed to enter, and at the SAARC summit venue, the Birendra International Conference Hall.

The venue lies about four kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the main hotel where the dignataries will stay and helicopters will be deployed to accompany the motorcades, Pandey said.

Several people have been detained for questioning ahead of the summit, but all have been Maoists and are not linked to the Indo-Pakistani conflict, Pandey said.

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