I say it with regret ...

I have with deep regret and profound sadness requested the White House to withdraw my nomination to serve as US ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal. Because The Kathmandu Post chose to carry several recent articles about me, I wanted to offer for you the reasons for my decision.

I’m a career member of the American Foreign Service and have held a variety of positions in Washington and around the world in the past 25 years. In the early 1980s, I had the great privilege of serving at the American Embassy in Kathmandu, where I developed a deep and continuing affection for Nepal and the Nepalese people.

In March, I was nominated to be the United States’ next ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal. I began to prepare for that important new assignment with joy and anticipation, based on my memories of my Nepalese friends and colleagues. I had the intention to serve the Secretary of State and the President in continuing and strengthening the solid and cooperative relations Nepal and the United States have enjoyed for more than fifty years. That was my main objective.

However, it is not to be. Many of your readers will be aware of the allegations against me, and it is not my intention to argue whether what my wife and I did was right or wrong when we decided not to proceed with adopting a child from Nepal. That was our decision, for which we take full responsibility.

I will say, however, that those allegations have ben inaccurate, unfair, and maliciously hurtful to me and my family. One allegation which cannot be let to stand unanswered is the charge that my wife’s parents did not support an adoption. That is false. My wife’s parents were two of the most loving and kind people I have ever known and would have supported us wholeheartedly had we gone forward. Both of them died last year. In a way that is blessing, because their hearts would have broken had they heard themselves described with ugly term "racist". As it is, it is our hearts that were broken.

I am grateful for the confidence expressed in me by the President of the United States when he nominated me to be ambassador to Nepal and to the support we have received from many people, including Nepalese, who have encouraged us to clear our names. However, I have decided that the more important point is to ensure that a decision I made nearly twenty years ago does not become a distraction or do damage to the excellent relations between our two countries. As someone whose commitment to Nepal-US relations is sincere and personal, I am not prepared to accept that possibility. It is for that reason that I have asked that my nomination be withdrawn.

Thomas P Furey
USA