Nepal-Bhutan Talks
NEPAL and Bhutan are slowly but steadily moving forward to resolve the long-standing
problem of more than 1,00,000 Bhutanese refugees living in different camps of Jhapa and
Morang of eastern Nepal. Already stung by resource crunch, Nepal has been facing further
social, economic and environmental crisis due to the presence of a large number of
foreigners in its territory. The efforts of repatriating refugees were delayed due to
Bhutan's lackluster response in taking back its nationals. Thimpu's stance was that all
living in camps were not Bhutanese nationals. However, Nepal firmly maintained its stance
of repatriating all refugees with dignity and honour as all refugees are bonafide citizens
of Bhutan, who built the Druk Kingdom with their blood and sweat. Finally both the
countries agreed to categorise all refugees into four categories- genuine Bhutanese who
were evicted from their homes, non-Bhutanese, those who fled Bhutan on their own will and
criminals. They also agreed to form a joint verification team in order to categorise the
Bhutanese refugees. Accordingly the joint verification team has already started its work
and completed categorisation of one Khudunabari camp. The 13th ministerial meeting of
Nepal and Bhutan, which is already underway in Thimpu, is expected to take a decision to
repatriate those refugees whose verification work has been completed. Against this
background, Minister for Foreign Affairs Narendra Bikram Shah, who is the head of the
Nepali delegation for the 13th ministerial meeting with Bhutan, said that the meeting
would make genuine and concrete efforts to remove any obstacles in the process of
verification and thereby clearing the way for their repatriation. As the process of
verification has taken a long time, both the countries must expedite it for early
repatriation of Bhutanese refugees. For this, as said by Foreign Minister Shah, the
process of verification as well as repatriation need to go side by side, which would, to
some extent, help resolution of the long standing refugee problem existing between Nepal
and Bhutan. The government of Bhutan also seems to be little liberal and pragmatic in
resolving the refugee crisis and shown a spirit of good neighbour. Nepal and Bhutan are
very close neighbours having monarchical culture and tradition and share many common
problems. Their relations must not strain due to small hitches. Thus, the early solution
of the refugees problem is at the interest of both Nepal and Bhutan and their bilateral
relations. The verification process, which is currently at the snail's pace, must be
expedited and resolved the problem as early as possible.
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