FM Gyawali meets Maldivian President, Singapore FM in Male

KATHMANDU, Sept 4: Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, who is currently visiting the Maldives, held a meeting with Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Tuesday.

During the meeting, they discussed various matters of mutual interest, including taking bilateral relations to a new height, promotion of tourism of both countries, employment for Nepali nationals in the Maldives, common efforts for addressing the adverse impacts of climate change, and cooperation in regional and global fora for common interest, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The President of the Maldives asked Gyawali to convey his regards and best wishes to President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

Meanwhile, FM Gyawali met Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore on Wednesday morning.

"We discussed various aspects of our relations. I requested him to further encourage Singapore's FDI in Nepal and thanked him for facilitating the treatment for our PM," Gyawali tweeted.

Similarly, he attended the lunch hosted by the Foreign Minister of the Maldives on Tuesday afternoon. Foreign Minister Gyawali also attended the dinner hosted by the President of the Maldives in honor of the visiting dignitaries.

The foreign minister also addressed the Fourth Indian Ocean Conference held in the Maldives under the theme of Securing the Indian Ocean Region: Traditional and Non-Traditional Challenges.

Addressing the conference, Foreign Minister Gyawali stated that Nepal is in favor of peace, security, and abidance of international laws in relation to the use of seas. He emphasized the need for an architecture based on inclusiveness, partnership, and collaboration among all countries and utilization of resources and sharing of the benefits by all states, including landlocked countries like Nepal.

He also expressed the view that since Nepal’s international trade passes through the Indian Ocean, Nepal is concerned about the various non-traditional security threats, such as piracy, illicit trafficking of drugs and weapons, human trafficking, and called for collective actions for addressing these threats in an effective manner.

Gyawali stated that with a view to connecting Nepal’s mountains with the Indian Ocean, the Government of Nepal has laid emphasis on establishing seamless connectivity in air, roads, and waterways, aiming at facilitating trade, transit, and movement of peoples. He shared Nepal’s plan of developing inland waterways in its big rivers in cooperation with India and bringing into operation its own commercial ships in international waters.

He drew the attention of the conference to the grave threats posed by climate change to mountainous countries and island nations, mentioning that Nepal is bearing the brunt of the adverse impacts of climate change without being the cause for it.

In view of the ecological interdependence between the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, he emphasized the need for preserving the ecological balance in the Himalayas by addressing the adverse effects of climate change. He appealed for meaningful collaboration between mountainous, coastal and island nations to address the climate crisis. He also invited the dignitaries attending the conference to participate in the Sagarmatha Sambad in Nepal.

The conference was organized by India Foundation, the Government of the Maldives, Foreign Service Institute of the Maldives, and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Singapore.

Heads of State and Government, Foreign Ministers, other Ministers, parliamentarians, ambassadors, experts and scholars from forty countries attended the conference.