Nepal to raise refugee‚ SAARC Summit issues in UNGA

LEKHANATH PANDEY

KATHMANDU: Nepal is going to put forward issues of Bhutanese and Tibetan refugees, urge an early date for Joint Commission meeting with India and convey the country’s inability to hold early SAARC Summit as scheduled during and at the sidelines of the 67th United Nation General Assembly.

Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha will put Nepal’s view on Tibetan refugees, and foreign assistance while addressing the UNGA.

DPM Shrestha will also urge Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley to arrange for early return for those Bhutanese refugees unwilling to go for the third country resettlement programmes during the sideline meeting.

“The refugee issue has long eclipsed our prospects of

strengthening relations in social, economic and trade fronts with

Bhutan,” Shrestha told THT, before leaving for the UNGA. “Nepal will call for an early solution to the refugees,” he added.

A source said that Thinley is sure to request Nepal for its help in

Thimphu’s bid to be one of the next non-permanent members of the Security

Council, which will fall vacant at the end of 2012 when India

completes her term under the Asia Group.

Shrestha is leaving for New York this evening by leading a dozen

delegates, including Foreign Secretary Durga Prasad Bhattarai and UN Division Chief at MoFA Dipak Dhital. Some of his delegates will join him from the Permanent Mission of Nepal to the UN in New York itself.

Beside, Foreign Minister Shrestha is likely to hold a meeting with

Indian counterpart SM Krishna. If the meeting is confirmed, Nepal will request for setting an early date for foreign minister’s level Joint Commission meeting between Nepal and India. No meeting of the highest-level bilateral mechanism has been held since its very first meeting of February 1991. The JC meeting was supposed to be held in March, but later did not happen.

While addressing the General Assembly on September 27, Nepal will request international donor community to assist us as per our national priority programmes. It will also convey to the world community to take into account about our national sensitivities while dealing with the issue of Tibetan refugees.

Shrestha has been with the stand that Nepal is not any party of

international obligations in the case of refugees and what we have been doing is only on the moral and human grounds.

On an informal meeting of SAARC Council of Ministers, which comprises foreign ministers of all eight member-states— he will apprise political condition in Nepal and buy time until September 2013 for holding the 18th SAARC Summit. Earlier, the highest-level meeting of the regional bloc was expected to be held in early 2013.

Nepal will also lobby hard for its tender to be a member of the UN

Economic and Social Council, whose election date is at October last.

Foreign Secretary Bhattarai will stay in New York until then to garner international support for Nepal’s bid.

During his 10-day stay in USA, he is also set to call on Presidents of Sri Lanka and Switzerland, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Secretary General of the United Nations. Likewise, separate meetings with foreign ministers of Australia, Switzerland, Turkey, and South Korea among others are on the schedule.