KATHMANDU, JULY 27

The International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives today decided to write a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence seeking copies of written communication they had with the United States of America about the US State Partnership Programme.

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The government had decided to withdraw from the SPP on June 20.

International Relations Committee Chair Pavitra Niraula said despite IRC's repeated reminders, the government had not provided it copies of its correspondence with US representatives. She said the IRC had sought a response from the foreign ministry on what it had done to implement the government's decision related to SPP.

Niraula said, 'We want to know about the correspondence with the US side during the tenure of different prime ministers, defence ministers, and foreign ministers,'

Niraula said. She said IRC had failed to get the copies even after writing to concerned ministries thrice.

Niraula said her panel wanted to know from the government why it had not been able to write to the US about Nepal's decision to withdraw from SPP and why the government had not been providing copies of its correspondence with the US to the panel.

IRC member Madhav Kumar Nepal said the government must make things clear about SPP. He said Nepal should stay away from rivalry between two major world powers as that would go against Nepal's policy of non-alignment. 'Nepal cannot go against the policy of non-alignment whether it is SPP or any other issue related to the US or any other country,' Nepal said. He said Nepal should not do anything that could allow anybody to use Nepal's territory against its neighbours.

Panel member Ishwar Pokharel wondered why the defence ministry and the Prime Minister's Office were not providing the copies of correspondence held with the US to the panel.

SPP became controversial after the UML, the main opposition party, accused the past governments led by the Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Centre of moving the SPP deal ahead. What added fuel to the fire was a letter written by the then army chief Rajendra Chhetri in 2015 that was leaked to the press which showed that Nepal gad expressed willingness to be part of SPP. At that time, KP Sharma Oli was the prime minister. Oli, however, said that he was not aware of the NA letter.

CPN-MC and CPN-UML leaders, on the other hand have criticised the government for not informing the US side of Nepal's decision to withdraw from SPP.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sewa Lamsal, recently said at a press conference that disaster assistance and infrastructure issues were involved in SPP. She had said, 'Nepal had received such assistance in the past as well. Our main concern is that such assistance should not have any adverse impact.'

A version of this article appears in the print on July 28, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.