KATHMANDU: Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali and United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday agreed to widen the seven-decade-long Nepal-US relations and capitalise this for serving mutual interests.

Minister Gyawali was quoted in Rastriya Samachar Samiti as saying, “We made shared commitment to widen the Nepal-US relations in a way to enhance mutual benefits."

The Foreign Minister further stated that Nepal government is opting to advance its campaign ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepalis’ through trade, investment and cooperation, and the US was positive to provide its support to Nepal to that end.

“The political meeting has gained further momentum,” he said. In a meeting with the US government high-level officials, Minister Gyawali informed that Nepal was successful in laying foundation for stable government by holding the three-tier elections.

While briefing Nepal’s priorities, he told US Secretary of State Pompeo, “We have set a target to graduate to a middle-income country before the year 2030.”

Likewise, in a bilateral political level meeting, the agenda of economic collaboration was also significantly discussed. The meeting has agreed to exchange high-level meetings between the two countries and utilise the discussions to boost economic collaboration.

Matters related to collaboration between the two nation on trade, investment and development cooperation were also discussed.

Foreign ministers of both the countries also dwelt on implementation of Millennium Challenge Cooperation (MCC) and its results.

Prior to the ministry-level meeting, foreign secretary Shanker Das Bairagi and US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs Alice Wells held a political consultation meeting. In the meeting, matters related to regional and international agendas and implementation of bilateral agreements, Nepal’s peace process and MCC were discussed.

The meeting was also attended by Nepal’s Ambassador to the United States Arjun Karki, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Finance Shree Krishna Nepal and Joint Secretary at Ministry of Home Affairs Mahadev Pant from Nepali side. Similarly, US Ambassador to Nepal Randy Berry and other government officials were present from the US side.