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Kathmandu,Friday January 14, 2000 Paush 30th, 2056.
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Mahat expects to resolve
refugee crisis ‘in a month’
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By a Post Reporter
KATHMANDU,
Jan 13 - Foreign Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat today said that the fate of nearly one
hundred thousand Bhutanese refugees languishing in Nepal could be decided “within a
month”.
Speaking
at a Reporters’ Club programme, Mahat expressed hope that a ministerial level meeting
due in Thimpu soon may achieve amicable settlement on the long festering refugee problem.
He, however, did not mention the date of the meeting.
“We
are holding another round of meeting with Bhutan within a month. After that we will
hopefully identify the genuine refugees and initiate the process of repatriation...We want
it to be the last meeting between the two countries regarding the refugee problem,”
the foreign minister said.
Eight
rounds of talks between the two countries have failed to yield desired results.
The
eighth round of talks were held in Kathmandu in September during which the two countries
decided to meet again and start the process of categorization to identify genuine
refugees.
Dr
Mahat said that there was a conducive environment at the moment which could help in
resolving the long-festering refugee crisis.
“The
misunderstandings between the two countries have been cleared,” he said, adding that
the Bhutanese government thought that Nepal was taking interest in their internal affairs
but that the Nepali side has assured them that it has no interest in their internal
affairs.
Speaking
about the Norwegian embassy opening in Kathmandu, the minister said that Nepal was working
towards having the European Union also opening its embassy here. In addition, he said that
the HMG had requested Italy to open its embassy here again, and that the government was
preparing to open its embassy in Doha, Qatar.
Asked
to comment on the Indian Airlines hijacking, Dr Mahat said, “the incident has made us
more aware.” He said that relations with India were deep and friendly and that Prime
Minister K P Bhattarai’s India visit would be undertaken “at a mutually agreed
time.”
Asked
if Nepal-India relations had chilled after the hijacking incident, and that whether it was
appropriate for the PM to visit India at this juncture, he replied, “I don’t
believe that relations between the two countries have chilled.”
Dr
Mahat also said that the government had not “activated” the Zone of Peace
proposal for the last 10 years. The proposal was actively pursued during the Panchayat
years.
Asked
whether relations with Pakistan had cooled after the recent expulsion of a Pakistani
embassy official, the foreign minister said, “we took the right step. No one has the
permission here to engage in activity against Nepal or its neighbours.”
The
Pakistani official was caught red-handed with counterfeit Indian banknotes.
Dr
Mahat also said that Indian government had assured that Indian Airlines would soon resume
its flights to Nepal.
Mahat
also refuted allegations that PM Bhattarai had accepted to the Indian media that security
lapses on Nepal’s part led to the aircraft hijacking. He also refused to accept
Indian media allegations against Nepal as being the official opinion of the Indian
government.
But
asked about Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh’s press conference after the
release of the hostages in which he said he had proof of Nepal’s involvement which
would be made public at the appropriate time, Dr Mahat said, “when I inquired with
the Indian government, they said that was not true. It is possible that he was
misquoted.”
But
when asked if the television footage would lie, Dr Mahat said, “I did not see it on
TV, but read it in the papers. I have always thought that he (Jaswant Singh) was
misquoted.”
Dr
Mahat also termed “baseless” those reports in the Indian media which say that
the young Tibetan Rinpochhe Karmappa who recently defected to India, used Nepali territory
for his long trans-Himalayan trek. The foreign minister refused to comment further on the
Karmappa’s case.
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