KATHMANDU, July 30: The government has recommended new ambassadors to 18 countries and recalled ambassadors from various four countries. A cabinet meeting held on Monday made a decision to this effect.

 Cabinet sources said Dr Shankar Sharma will continue as the ambassador of Nepal to India, while ambassadors from four other countries have been recalled.  All ambassadors appointed from the quota of CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist) have been recalled. Those recalled included Bishnu Pukar Shrestha (China), Basu Dev Mishra (Sri Lanka), Milan Tuladhar (Russia) and Kailash Pokharel (Australia).

Cabinet sources said the government has recommended Lok Darshan Regmi (USA), Prof. Dr Krishna Prasad Oli (China), Chandra Ghimire (UK), Dr Shiva Maya Tumbahamphe (South Korea), Dr Shail Rupakheti (Germany), Prof. Dr Kapil Man Shrestha (South Africa), Prof. Dhan Prasad Pandit (Israel) and Naresh Bikram Dhakal (Saudi Arabia) as ambassadors.

Similarly, the cabinet meeting also recommended Kanta Rijal (Australia), Prakash Mani Poudel* (Portugal), Rita Dhital (Pakistan), Sanil Nepal (Spain), Dr Netra Timilsina (Malaysia), Jung Bahadur Chauhan (Russia), Ramesh Chandra Paudel (Qatar), Sumnima Tuladhar (Denmark) and Ram Krishna Bhattarai (Sri Lanka) as ambassadors.

While Paudel* and Dhital are career diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the remaining others have political backgrounds of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML.

Nepal currently has 34 residential embassies including three permanent missions in New York, Geneva and Vienna. The government has recently decided to establish a residential embassy in Portugal even as there are calls to review and streamline the number of Nepal’s diplomatic missions abroad.

The then CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN-UML led government had decided to recall ambassadors from these countries. Although the recommendations were made earlier, this changed following the formation of a new coalition government comprising the NC and UML.

List of ambassadorial recommendations

*Corrected

 
• govt
 
• new_ambassadors
 
• recall