“Amity with all, and enmity with none remains the soul of our foreign policy”, so says Nepal’s foreign minister Mr. Pradeep Kumar Gyawali.

“Nepal’s adherence to the principles of the UN Charter, Panchasheel, and the norms of world peace confirms to this and that guided by this spirit, we attach high importance to our relations with all countries and organizations that you represent”, said Minister Gyawali at a dinner-gathering organized in honor of the of the diplomatic community based in Kathmandu held on 09 July 2018
Our policy of engaging constructively with all of our friends and partners has been mutually beneficial. We continue to work closely with our neighbors, major powers, development partners, countries in our extended neighborhood, labour receiving countries, United Nations and multilateral financial institutions, the minister added.

“I consider this an opportunity for me to express our gratitude to all of our friends and development partners for the close and collaborative partnership that we enjoy. You all have been dependable friends and partners in the high and low that Nepal endured in past two decades. We remain thankful to you all for your continued support and cooperation in Nepal’s development efforts”, the minister continued.

Talking on Nepal-India relations, the minister sounded the entire diplomatic community that “the recent successful exchange of visits by the Prime Ministers of Nepal and India has contributed to promote trust and goodwill between the two countries and further consolidate bilateral relations and that we have agreed to strengthen ongoing cooperation and expand partnership on the basis of the principles of equality, mutual trust, respect and benefit. We agreed to advance cooperation in the areas of agriculture, railway linkages and inland waterways, among others.

The Minister talked of equality which is what has been missing since the birth of India in 1947 and will continue to remain missing despite of the ministerial assurances, claim India watchers in Nepal.

Moreover, reports emanating from India hints that the “Indian establishment is all set to educate its smaller neighbors on relevant topics, for example, coercion, arm twisting, thuggery and et al.

The teacher is perhaps the RAW Chief. However, this remains yet to be substantiated. This has been announced by Indian FM Ms. Sushma Swaraj. This means that Ambassador Puri will take some tutorial classes to a selected “few” Nepali leaders more so Mohan Baidya and Netra Bikram Chand who have been abandoned by Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai for some unknown reasons. The Ambassador may propose yet another NOIDA shelter to those who so desire.

As regards PM Oli’s visit to China, Minister Gyawali made these observations, “the Prime Minister had a successful visit to our northern neighbor, China and that both Nepal and China have agreed to intensify implementation of MoU on cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative to enhance connectivity.
According to the Minister, the cooperation with China covers building of dry ports, roads, railways, aviation and communications within the framework of Trans-Himalaya Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network.

“We believe that this will open up a new era of cross-border cooperation and foster trade, commerce and investment”, the minister further added.

Minister Gyawali however, remained tight lipped on why his government freshly allowed the Dalai Lama’s birth day celebrations to happen in Kathmandu.

But yet in language Nepal believes in one China policy and has assured China that no anti-China activities shall be allowed in Nepali soil to take place.
Nepal cheating China?

In the meantime, we had the honor to host the Prime Minister of Pakistan on a bilateral visit. The visit, taken place after a gap of many years, was successful in cementing the bilateral ties between our two countries.

During this period, we have had fruitful bilateral consultation meetings with Brazil, Denmark, EU, Israel, Russia and Switzerland. All of these engagements have been successful in further consolidating the friendly bilateral relations.

In the regional front, according to the Nepal’s foreign minister, “we are preparing for hosting the 4th Summit meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sector Economic and Technical Cooperation (BIMSTEC) towards the end of August this year.

Different meetings of the technical committees under the SAARC have been held so said the minister on SAARC. He however did not tell about the possibility of the meet of the SAARC regional body. This is puzzling.
Nepal participated in the Ministerial Meeting of the non-aligned movement held in Baku, Azerbaizan and Ministerial Meeting of International Think Tank for LLDCs held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia at the Foreign Minister’s level, informed the Minister to the invited diplomats.

As you all know, the motto of the present government is ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’. We know that there are challenges ahead, and realization of this goal is not possible with our efforts alone. In recognition of these challenges as well as the distance we have to travel on our way to prosperity, we expect to be engaged in an enhanced level of economic partnership in trade, investment, technology transfer, and tourism beyond development cooperation.

The Minister in an indirect way appealed the community to extend support to Nepal in whatever way the individual countries can so that Nepal could achieve its goal.
Maintaining stability, advancing socio-economic transformation, ensuring social justice, good governance and rule of law have been the overarching objectives of the present government, the minister assured the guests from foreign countries.

“Our commitment to democracy and the universal values of human rights and fundamental freedoms is total and unwavering and that we have reached to this stage with decades of struggle and sacrifices of Nepali people for the cause of democracy and freedom. This Government can never compromise on those achievements and values that we fought for”, the minister confidently told.

Rest of the Ministerial speech in his own words:

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Respect for diversity and pluralism constitute the very spirit of Nepali society and this Government stands on that foundation. Therefore our commitment to pluralism is absolute.
This year alone will see Nepal’s three different periodic reports being considered by three different human rights treaty bodies.
In March, we hosted Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, and we are preparing for the visit of special rapporteur on the violence against women, and special rapporteur on right to food this year.

Two amendment Bills related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons are currently under consideration of the Parliament. With the new law in place and terms of the Commissions been extended, this will allow the investigation of all allegations of serious violations of human rights and humanitarian laws and ensure justice and accountability. There will be no blanket amnesty to serious violations of human rights.

We live in a complex and unpredictable world. We share the concerns about the simmering uncertainties in multilateralism. However, Nepal’s faith in multilateralism remains unshaken. We consider the United Nations as an indispensable organization in multilateral affairs and support its reform for further strengthening. United Nations is the only legitimate forum to deliberate and resolve the international issues of common concern.

We are encouraged by the adoption of the resolution on repositioning of UN development system by the UNGA recently. This is intended for robust implementation of SDGs. We look forward to the impending repositioning that is aimed at addressing the gaps, building synergy and improving accountability, steering clear from the politicization of development.
Nepal will continue its contribution to the UN Peacekeeping Operations. Our own experience of the peace process may be useful to the countries in transition and those gone through conflict. We would be happy to share our experience as a uniquely successful and home-grown brand of the peace process and contribute to the peace building elsewhere.

We welcome the 2018 Inter-Korea Summit between the leaders of the South and North Korea and resulting thaw on the Korean peninsula. We also welcome the rapprochement between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and hope this will result into denuclearization and a lasting peace in the region.

The pace of reconstruction has moved on satisfactorily. We are close to the final phase of the reconstruction and rebuilding of the individual houses, which we anticipate to be completed in a year. Reconstruction and restoration works of the heritage sites and the public buildings are too moving smoothly that will take some more time to complete. We are grateful to all our friends and partners for their cooperation and generous assistance in this process.

Since the political transition is over and a new era of political stability has emerged in Nepal, our priorities and modalities for engagement demand commensurate adjustments. We are in an early phase of federalization. It is incumbent upon us to make this process successful. The Constitution allocates the matters related to foreign relations under the competence of the federal government.

It is in this context that we had to devise code of conduct and advise our partners from the diplomatic community to follow the official channel of communications on the matters of development partnership. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains available to facilitate you in that process.

With these words, I once again welcome you all to this dinner. Allow me to purpose a toast for the continued friendship and cooperation between Nepal and the friendly countries and institutions that you all represent.

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