KATHMANDU, Sept 2: The International Relations and Labour Committee under the Legislature- Parliament has directed the government to further strengthen diplomatic relations with neighboring countries—India and China, on the basis of constitution of Nepal, principles of the Charter of the United Nations and Panchasheel.
Today's meeting of the Committee directed this after taking information about the reasons behind sending Deputy Prime Ministers Bimalendra Nidhi and Krishna Bahadur Mahara to India and China respectively soon after the formation of Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government and about what the letters sent by the government to both countries through the DPMs, content.
On the occasion, the DPMs said that they handed over the invitation to the respective countries sent by Presidnet Bidya Devi Bhandari to Indian President Pranab Mukharjee and Chinese President Xi Jinping for their state visit.
They said, "We as special envoys of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal went India and China taking two letters. One is sent by Presidnet Bhandari to Indian and Chinese Presidents for state visit to Nepal and another was about the content of their selection as special envoys of Prime Minister Dahal. No other issues were mentioned there."
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Insisting on the falseness of the claims made by the main opposition and brought to fore by the media over the subjects connected with Nepal's internal affairs being included in the letter they said, "Our visit has contributed in strengthening the historic relations Nepal has with both the countries and continuing it in the future."
On the occasion, DPM Nidhi said that his visit to India has further consolidated and broadened the ties between the two countries while bringing certainty over the Indian President's visit to Nepal and Nepal's President and Prime Minister's visit to India.
Likewise, another DPM Mahara elaborated on his visit to China stating that matters of mutual interest and concern including constitution's implementation, efforts underway for bringing the disgruntled side on board and expanding the constitution's acceptability and current government's priority of concluding the peace process were discussed with top Chinese officials.
Foreign Minister, Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat, underscored the trend in practice world over of sending special envoys to neighbouring countries for consolidating the ties and in regards the government's priority when there was no appointment of foreign minister and during such a time when the country's ambassadorial positions in the two countries remained vacant.
Saying that positive responses were pouring in from international level on the visit, they asked that no one should cast a doubt on the letter sent by PM Dahal to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi through DPM Nidhi.
Earlier, lawmakers had demanded clarification of why and what a crisis prompted to send them (the DPMs) to India and China as special envoy of PM Dahal.
They also said this has weakened the foreign policy of Nepal and demanded that the information about the exchange of letters with the neighbors during the DPMs' visit should be made available to the committee.
However, some lawmakers termed the DPMs' visits matured, right and positive. RSS
