Kathmandu, Dec 27 : The Ministry of Defense has asked the Nepal Army (NA) to stop the recruitment process.

According to Nepalnews, the Ministry wrote a letter to army headquarters on Wednesday ordering it to suspend the process.

On Friday, army chief General Rookmangud Katawal met Prime Minister Prachanda to tell him that the Nepali Army was merely filling the positions that had become vacant and had not violated the agreements by doing so.

He had said that it would be difficult to stop the process midway.

Earlier, The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) chief Ian Martin had issued a statement asking both the Nepali Army and the Maoists not to recruit saying that would violate the agreements.

Two months ago, Nepali Army had opened applications for 2884 positions for which it received 50,000 applications across the country.

According to chief of NA''s legal section Brigadier General BA Kumar Sharma, Martin has misinterpreted the agreements.

He doubted the intention as the process was dragged into controversy two months after it was initiated.

"We are not making new recruitments. We are only filling vacant positions. If vacant positions are not filled regularly, the Nepali Army will be empty in ten years. Is it what Martin wants?" he asked.

After the peace agreement, Nepali Army has already filled vacant positions twice.

This time, one of the Maoist commanders Baldev had warned that they, too, would start recruiting new combatants if the Nepali Army did not stop the process. He claimed that there were talks with Prachanda to open recruitment for 16,000 combatants. Subsequently, Martin issued the statement. (ANI)