KATHMANDU, JUNE 16
The United States' State Partnership Programme has become a political hot potato, with the ruling and the opposition parties eager to wash their hands off it.
The bickering over SPP continued today as well, with the ruling party blaming the main opposition CPN-UML for agreeing to implement the programme when it was in power and the UML blaming Nepali Congress for requesting the US to implement SPP when it was at helm.
CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal today said at a programme that the KP Sharma Oli-led government had agreed to implement the SPP, but the current coalition government was against signing the agreement.
"The Oli government had agreed to implement SPP. We will firmly stand in favour of national independence, development, and prosperity," he added.
Dahal said the prime minister had told him that he would not sign the agreement to implement the SPP.
"I want to assure all the people that this coalition government would not sign the agreement to implement the SPP," Dahal said. He said the UML was falsely projecting itself as a nationalist force.
"Those who surrender national interests try to project themselves as more nationalist," Dahal added.
CPN-UML leader Ishwar Pokharel, on the other hand, spoke in the House of Representatives claiming that positive responses on SPP were sent to the US when the Nepali Congress led the government in 2015 and 2017. In an oblique reference to Dahal, Pokharel said a ruling party leader was falsely blaming the UML for SPP agreement.
"I challenge those who blame our party for SPP. If anybody has a document that shows that the UML government had signed the SPP agreement, they should present it in the Parliament," Pokharel said.
Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand spoke from the rostrum of the House of Representatives and said, "Neither has Nepal decided to join the US State Partnership Programme (SPP) nor has it any intention to do so."
Yesterday, the US Embassy in Nepal had said that there was no agreement to implement SPP and any claim to the contrary was false. The US Embassy said Nepal had applied for SPP in 2015 and 2017, with the United States accepting Nepal's application in 2019.
Meanwhile, according to a leaked letter written by former army chief Rajendra Chhetri to then US Ambassador Alaina B Teplitz on 27 October 2015, the Nepali Army had requested for implementing US National Guard State Partnership Programme in Nepal 'in the near future'. "It is believed that this programme can promote long-term, enduring, and mutually beneficial security relationships to exchange military skills and experience, share defence knowledge, enhance partnership capacity, and further mutual cooperation," the letter read.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 17, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
