Kathmandu, September 20 

A meeting of the House of Representatives today unanimously approved the proposal seeking to hold general discussions on the international agreement on establishing University for Peace.

Minister of Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa had presented the proposal on behalf Minister of Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali. Advocating for the proposal, Home Minister Thapa said it was necessary to endorse the proposal in view of the significant role Nepal had been playing to promote world peace.

The concept of Peace University has been brought with the objective of establishing peace and stability in Nepal, the home minister said, adding the university would be relevant and useful in preparing researchers and scholars on establishment of peace.

The proposal was tabled in the HoR suspending parliamentary rules. The proposal is likely to be approved by the House of Representatives in the next meeting which is scheduled for Tuesday. The university is established with a clear determination to provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace and with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate co-operation among people and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress, in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the charter of the United Nations.

To this end, the university shall contribute to the great universal task of educating for peace by engaging in teaching, research, post graduate training and dissemination of knowledge fundamental to the full development of the human person and societies through inter-disciplinary study of all matters relating to peace, the agreement states.

The University for Peace is an inter-governmental organisation with university status, established by a treaty in 1980 and having its main campus in Costa Rica.

The HoR meeting also fixed September 23 as the date for the election to the chair of the joint committee of both the houses of the federal Parliament.

Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara directed the Parliament Secretariat to publish the election schedule.