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| Kathmandu, Tuesday March 25, 2003 Chaitra 11, 2059. |
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Minister Shah leaves for Thimphu
Post Report
KATHMANDU, March 24 : Foreign Minister Narendra Bikram Shah
and two other high-level foreign ministry officials left for Bhutan today to attend the
13th Nepal-Bhutan Ministerial Joint Committee meeting.
Minister Shah declined to speak to the
mediapersons at the Tribhuvan International Airport. However, Spokesperson at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs Madan Bhattarai said that the foreign ministers of the two countries
would try to reconcile the differences that have cropped up during the ongoing
categorisation process of the Bhutanese refugees.
According to the ministry, the focus of the
scheduled three-day meet will be reviewing the progress made in Druk capital, Thimphu, by
the Joint Verification Team (JVT) which has been placing the Bhutanese refugees into four
categories, a follow up on its verification exercise conducted in the Khudunabari camp in
2001. The JVT has been categorising the refugees since February 24 in the Bhutanese
capital.
The 13th MJC meeting will discuss the report
submitted by the JVT on categorisation. The four categories into which the refugees are
being placed are Bhutanese forcibly evicted, Bhutanese who ‘willingly’
emigrated, non-Bhutanese and Bhutanese with criminal records. Nepal’s position has
been that except those identified as non-Bhutanese, all other Bhutanese citizens should be
allowed to be repatriated.
In fact, during the 12th joint ministerial
meeting foreign ministers held in Kathmandu in February, the Druk Kingdom agreed to take
back all "willing" refugees who want to go back to their homeland. The 13th
ministerial meeting will also discuss the modalities of the repatriation process. One
issue to be considered is whether to involve a third party/agency during the repatriation
of the refugees.
The Khudunabari model will be applied during
the verification and categorisation of the remaining six camps, foreign ministry officials
revealed. Almost 100,000 refugees are still to be covered under the JVT exercise.
Foreign Secretary Madhu Raman Acharya and Joint Secretary
Madhuban Paudyal are part of the foreign minister’s team.
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