New York, Shawwal 06, 1431 / Sept 15, 2010, SPA -- The UN Security Council said Wednesday that its monitoring mission in Nepal will leave the country by mid-January after a last four-month extension of its mandate in the troubled Himalayan country. The 15-nation council said the extension, expiring on January 15, will allow the mission to complete some of the elements of its mandate and the ongoing work on monitoring the disarmament of parties in conflict in Nepal, according to dpa. The government of Nepal and Maoist opponents agreed in June 2008 to cease fire and to subject their armies to disarmament under UN supervision. Thousands of disarmed Maoists are undergoing the process of reintegration into society and are being monitored by the small UN mission of fewer than 200 international and local personnel. The council said in a resolution adopted unanimously that the mission will leave Nepal upon termination of the mandate on January 15. It called on the Nepalese government and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to implement an agreement reached Monday, as well as a timetable with clear benchmarks for the reintegration and rehabilitation of Maoist former fighters into Nepalese society. It called on the political parties in Nepal "to expedite the peace process and to work together in a spirit of cooperation, consensus and compromise in order to continue the transition to a durable, long-term solution to enable the country to move to a peaceful, democratic and more prosperous future." The mandate for the UN mission in Nepal had been renewed several times, but both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy for Nepal, Karin Landgren, were in favour of a final extension because of the deadlocked political process in the country, which affected the work of the mission. Ban said the UN mission had been made a "scapegoat" by parties in Nepal, while Landgren said in late August that Nepal was "on the brink of an uncertain and dangerous constitutional dilemma." --SPA 21:22 LOCAL TIME 18:22 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/817436