The two Foreign Ministers exchanged views about the socio-economic ramifications about the coronavirus pandemic.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Thursday called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and expressed Islamabad’s desire to forge a long-term and multi-dimensional partnership with Moscow as the two leaders discussed matters such as coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the Afghan peace process.
During their telephonic conversation, Mr. Qureshi offered condolences on the loss of precious lives in Russia due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russia, currently the third worst-hit country from COVID-19, has reported 5,61,091 confirmed cases. The country’s death toll stands at 7,660. Matters of mutual interest, including the COVID-19 pandemic, cooperation at the multilateral fora, prospects of enhanced bilateral cooperation, and regional issues were discussed, according to Foreign Office in Islamabad.
The two Foreign Ministers exchanged views about the socio-economic ramifications about the pandemic. Foreign Minister Lavrov expressed solidarity with Pakistan in its efforts to combat the outbreak.
Mr. Qureshi underlined that Pakistan considered Russia an important partner and desired to forge a long-term and multi-dimensional partnership with Russia.
Pakistan’s ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities and the chill in the U.S.-Pakistan relations has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.
The two Foreign Ministers also discussed the situation in Afghanistan in the context of the recent positive developments.
Mr. Qureshi reaffirmed Pakistan’s support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process and underlined Pakistan’s positive contribution to the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement.
After more than 18 years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. and the Taliban reached an agreement on February 29 in what was both sides” most intensive efforts yet to end the war.
Central to the deal is a significant drawdown of the U.S. troops and guarantees from the Taliban that the country would not become a safe haven for terrorists. Mr. Qureshi stressed the importance of inclusive intra-Afghan negotiations as the only way to build durable peace and security in the country.
The two Foreign Ministers agreed on maintaining close consultations as part of regional efforts to support the Afghan peace process. He also discussed Kashmir with Mr. Lavrov.
During the telephonic talks, Mr. Qureshi shared deep concern over the “continuing double lockdown” in Kashmir and the new domicile law, the Foreign Office said.
Mr. Qureshi underlined the importance of urgent steps to address the situation in Kashmir, the Foreign Office said. The two leaders agreed to remain in close contact to take forward the important bilateral agenda and close cooperation in the regional context, it said.
Mr. Qureshi apprised his Russian counterpart of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s call for Global Initiative on Debt Relief for developing countries. Mr. Khan in April urged the global community to launch an initiative to give debt relief to developing countries that are fighting the novel coronavirus. Pakistan’s total coronavirus tally stands at 1,60,118 with over 3,000 deaths.
Mr. Qureshi said that coordinated and comprehensive actions were essential to creating fiscal space needed by the developing world to deal with the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19.
The Russian Foreign Minister expressed support for the debt relief initiative and assured to play a positive role.
The U.S. president had expressed a willingness to halt criminal probe to give “personal favors to dictators he liked,” says the former national security adviser
In a withering behind-the-scenes portrayal, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton accused him of sweeping misdeeds that included explicitly seeking Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help to win re-election.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime foreign policy hawk who Mr. Trump fired in September over policy differences, also said that the U.S. president had expressed a willingness to halt criminal investigations to give “personal favors to dictators he liked,” according to a book excerpt published in the New York Times.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on excerpts from “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” published on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The accusations are part of a book that the U.S. government on Tuesday sued to block Mr. Bolton from publishing, arguing it contained classified information and would compromise national security.
Together, they portray a U.S. President mocked by his top advisers who exposed himself to far more extensive accusations of impropriety than those that drove the Democratic-led House of Representatives to impeach Mr. Trump last year.
The Republican-led Senate acquitted Mr. Trump in early February. Mr. Trump was accused of withholding U.S. military aid last year to put pressure on newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to provide damaging information on Democratic political opponent Joe Biden.
“Had Democratic impeachment advocates not been so obsessed with their Ukraine blitzkrieg in 2019, had they taken the time to inquire more systematically about Mr. Trumps behavior across his entire foreign policy, the impeachment outcome might well have been different,” Mr. Bolton wrote, according to excerpts of his book published in the Wall Street Journal.
Critics of Mr. Bolton note he declined to testify before the House inquiry when his disclosures could have been critical, adhering instead to White House guidance.
Representative Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who led the prosecution of Republican Mr. Trump, slammed Mr. Bolton for saying at the time that “he’d sue if subpoenaed.”
“Instead, he saved it for a book,” Mr., Schiff said on Twitter. ”Mr. Bolton may be an author, but he’s no patriot.”
Still, Mr. Bolton’s allegations provide new ammunition to critics ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election, including his behind-the-scenes accounts of Mr. Trump’s conversations with China’s Xi – which, in one case, broached the topic of the U.S. vote.
“Mr. Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Mr. Xi to ensure he’d win,” Mr. Bolton wrote, in the most in-depth, damaging portrayal by a Mr. Trump administration insider to date and just days after former defense secretary Jim Mattis accused the President of trying to divide America.
Mr. Biden said in a statement: “If these accounts are true, its not only morally repugnant, its a violation of Donald Trump’s sacred duty to the American people.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in Senate testimony that Mr. Bolton’s account was “absolutely untrue.”
“I was at the meeting. Would I recollect something as crazy as that? Of course I would,” Mr. Lighthizer said. “This never happened in it for sure. Completely crazy.”
Mr. Trump ‘eroded’ Presidency
Although Mr. Trump’s administration had been strongly critical of China’s mass detention of mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Xi a green light in that same meeting, Mr. Bolton said.
“According to our interpreter, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Mr. Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do,” Mr. Bolton wrote, adding another top White House official said Mr. Trump made similar comments during his November 2017 trip to China.
Mr. Bolton cited an innumerable number of conversations in which Mr. Trump demonstrated “fundamentally unacceptable behavior that eroded the very legitimacy of the presidency.”
A former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Fox News television commentator, Mr. Bolton’s hawkish approach had worn on a president weary of foreign military entanglements, officials say.
Mr. Trump would sometimes chide Mr. Bolton in meetings, introducing him to visiting foreign leaders by saying, You all know the great John Mr. Bolton. Hell bomb you. Hell take out your whole country.
In excerpts published in the Washington Post, Mr. Bolton writes that Mr. Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool” and that it was “really part of the United States.”
The U.S. government has publicly said it does not favor using force to topple Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
The book also exposed the sometimes dim view that Mr. Trump’s advisers have of him. During a 2018 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mr. Bolton says he got a note from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mocking Mr. Trump.
“He is so full of shit,” Mr. Pompeo’s note said, according to a Mr. Bolton excerpt in the Washington Post.
Although Mr. Trump is publicly critical of journalists, Mr. Bolton’s book quotes the U.S. President making some of his most alarming remarks to date. In a summer 2019 meeting in New Jersey, Mr. Trump allegedly said journalists should be jailed so they have to divulge their sources: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags, according to another excerpt in the Post.
“A small act of kindness has moved us to tears,” wrote one person in the comments section of the viral video.
The video of this uniquely unsuccessful robbery has gone viral on social media since it emerged a few days ago, collecting thousands of views and comments.
“A small act of kindness has moved us to tears. This tells a lot about the kind of toxic environment we live in. Little things make a big difference,” wrote one person in the comments section.
“This gives me hope for humanity,” another wrote.
A pair of robbers in Pakistan apparently had a change of heart after their victim broke down in tears. A video that is being widely circulated online shows the robbers returning the valuables they had stolen from a food delivery man and even consoling him with a hug as he broke down after the theft.
According to Geo News, the bizarre but heartwarming incident occurred in Karachi – the capital of the Pakistani province of Sindh. CCTV footage that has gone viral shows the food delivery man – an employee of a popular food delivery platform in the country – walking up to his parked bike after making a delivery.
The footage shows two robbers pulling up next to him on their own bike. The robbers first tried to intimidate their target, reports Gulf News. While one got off the bike and tried to wrest his valuables from him, the other was seen keeping watch during the mugging attempt.
However, the delivery man reportedly broke down during the robbery attempt, heartbroken at the loss of his hard-earned money. Seeing this, the robbers had a change of heart and were filmed returning his things to him instead of fleeing. They were even seen hugging him and shaking his hand in an attempt to console him before driving away.
Police officials have confirmed that the incident occurred in Karachi, according to Geo News. They are yet to identify in which police station’s jurisdiction the crime occurred.
Last year, a thief managed to gain the Internet’s sympathy and praise when he returned the money he stole from his victim after checking her bank balance.
London: A team of UK scientists hopes to receive approval to begin human trials of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine this week.
The vaccine in question would harness new technology, which would mean it could be manufactured in large quantities with equipment bought off the shelf, and be relatively cheap to produce at just £3 ($3.76) per dose.
The UK government has given £18.5 million in funding toward research and trials of the vaccine, with £5 million more being donated from private sources.
The scientists, at Imperial College in London, said the new vaccine works by injecting a dose of approximately a thousandth of a thousandth of a gram of genetic material, called RNA, into the body, allowing it to begin multiplying.
The RNA would then cause human cells to begin producing a protein found on the surface of COVID-19 cells, in a large enough quantity to train the immune system to detect and neutralize the protein — enabling it to do the same if later infected with the virus itself.
Prof. Robin Shattock, the team’s leader and a mucosal infection specialist at Imperial College, said the amount of RNA required would mean that a liter of the vaccine could be enough to inoculate 200 million people.
“It really is a tiny dose,” he told The Times newspaper. “That’s very good from a safety point of view but also in terms of production — it makes it much easier to scale up.”
Animal trials conducted on mice have returned positive results, though the team cautioned that at least one booster might be required were the effects of the initial dose of the vaccine to prove insufficient.
The matter has been taken up with Pakistan authorities, according to defence sources
Two Indian High Commission officials in Pakistan are missing for the last two hours and the matter was taken up with Pakistan authorities, defence sources said on Monday.
“One vehicle with two Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) drivers had gone out for duty but did not reach the destination,” defence sources said.
The Sultanate is reeling from the double whammy of low oil prices and Covid-19. But with intra-GCC tensions high, a consensus on aid won’t come easily.
Oman has unofficially reached out to neighbouring Gulf countries for financial assistance in an effort to shore up its ailing economy, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
According to two unnamed officials in the region, discussions have taken place at the leadership and foreign ministry level between Gulf officials, but are preliminary and without any formal decision.
Gulf countries are unanimous in recognising that Oman is in dire straits and do not want to see it become distressed further, a US official also told Bloomberg.
Already among the most vulnerable economies of the six-nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Sultanate has been beset by low oil prices and lockdown measures implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Oman, the largest Gulf oil exporter that is not a member of OPEC, is one of the most vulnerable oil producers in terms of credit profiles along with Angola, Bahrain, and Iraq.
King Salman meets with Sultan Haitham in Muscat | File Photo | Photo Credit: SPA
It’s break-even oil price – the price required to balance its government budget – is $82, according to Fitch Ratings.
The ongoing OPEC+ cuts are only set to deepen deficits in the GCC and stall growth. Under the latest round of agreed cuts, Oman will slash its crude production by 23 percent.
Speaking with S&P Global Platts, Oman’s oil minister Mohammed Al-Rumhy highlighted how market stability was being undermined as a result of monthly production cuts.
Days before the price of oil collapsed, Moody’s had downgraded Oman’s rating due to rising government debt and lower fiscal buffers. The rating agency put it under review for downgrade in late March due to heightened vulnerability to oil shocks.
Fitch Ratings also downgraded Oman in March to “reflect the continued erosion of Oman’s fiscal and external balance sheets, which could accelerate in an environment of lower oil prices despite prospects for faster implementation of fiscal consolidation measures.”
In April, the World Bank predicted that its economy would contract by 3.5 percent in 2020 due to the oil price slide, which would put further strain on its fiscal and external deficits. It estimated public debt to exceed 70 percent of GDP in 2020 and beyond.
Mohamed Bin Zayed with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq | File Photo | Photo Credit: Twitter
Piling on top of that has been the disruption from the pandemic. Following a countrywide lockdown in mid-March, it has endured a slowdown in industrial activity, services, and tourism.
Fitch predicted that Oman’s non-oil economy will slip into a recession of 5 percent this year, and noted that “support from the rest of the GCC may be necessary for the sustainability of their currencies and debt levels.”
Ismail Numan Telci, Vice President at ORSAM and Associate Professor at Sakarya University, pointed out how the pandemic has had a devastating impact on trade revenues, especially given Oman’s dependency on Asia.
“The fact that Omani partners in Asia have been badly affected by Covid-19 caused a slump in Asian demand to Omani crude exports. Asian partners are taking the lion’s share in Omani crude exports, therefore, such a slump in demand has necessarily affected Omani fiscal stability,” said Telci.
King Hamad with Sultan Haitham | File Photo | Photo Credit: Oman News Agency
Oman has the highest Chinese exposure among GCC states, with 45 percent of its exports – mostly oil – going to China.
It currently owes over $3.5 billion to Chinese banks, which is 5 percent of its GDP. A few days ago, Bank of Muscat completed a bilateral loan of $150 million with the China Development Bank (CDB).
Haitham presses forward
The double whammy of the collapse in oil prices coupled with Covid-19 couldn’t have come at a worse time for Oman.
It was beginning to address a host of domestic challenges following the death of its iconic ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Al Said, who was succeeded by his cousin Haitham bin Tariq Al Said in a smooth transition of power on January 11.
Diversification plans – underpinned by the Vision 2040 program – were underway to wean the country off its hydrocarbon dependence.
In his address to the nation on February 23, after paying respects to his predecessor’s role in building the modern Omani state, Sultan Haitham pledged to “take the necessary measures to restructure the state’s administrative apparatus” in order to “achieve good governance, performance, integrity and accountability.”
Only three weeks later, Haitham and his government had to contend with a record oil price plunge and a global pandemic.
In response, Haitham established an inter-ministerial committee to tackle the fallout. He introduced a 10 percent cut across the board to government ministry budgets, signaling an intent to reduce spending and introduce fiscal discipline.
Representational Picture | Photo Credit: Social Media
Haitham has prioritised restructuring the state and its administrative apparatus, and last week he signed a series of royal decrees that began to flesh out those commitments.
A private office was established to oversee civil ministries; while an Oman Investment Authority would oversee and coordinate operations of Oman’s fifty-plus state-owned companies (with the exception of part state-owned Petroleum Development Oman).
Additionally, the $17 billion authority will oversee the country’s sovereign wealth funds and refocus on domestic investment.
While it is still early to know the impact of these measures, Haitham’s strategy to implement good governance and efficient administration is evident.
The GCC: a stumbling block?
Politically, the region remains fraught.
Tensions in the Gulf have been stoked by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia’s joint war in Yemen, the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, and Oman’s relationship with Iran. Reported Emirati meddling in Oman’s internal affairs has caused a great deal of friction as well.
It is against this backdrop of intra-GCC conflict that a financial bailout for Oman is being considered. Apart from a GCC-sponsored aid deal in 2011, Oman traditionally has not accepted financial support from its neighbours.
Oman’s importance is highlighted by its geostrategic maritime location, making its stability integral to Gulf states and allies like the US.
Till now, Muscat’s role as a mediator on regional and international matters has been a pillar of its foreign policy, which has allowed it to deftly chart a path of neutrality in the region.
“Rather than aligning with certain blocs against any of its neighbours, Muscat sees long-term peace and stability in the Gulf and greater Middle East as only possible when all actors are accommodated and engaged respectfully,” said Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy.
However, that neutrality is likely to come under strain in much more polarised regional bloc.
Any involvement with Doha in an aid deal won’t go down well with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Oman-Qatar ties have strengthened since the blockade began in 2017, there will be pressure on Muscat to bend the knee – especially with a new ruler on the throne.
“There is no doubt that pressures from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates will give Muscat a set of real foreign policy challenges to address,” Cafiero said, adding that Oman would be determined not to allow that pressure to compromise its sovereignty and relationships with Doha and Tehran.
Last month, Haitham met with the Qatari foreign and finance ministers. The talks had followed a series of meetings and phone calls between Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar.
Cinzia Bianco, a Research Fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations, remarked how Oman is open to a unified Gulf strategy that could nudge the fractured bloc toward rapprochement:
As @CamilleLons notes this is unusual but it had been clear for weeks now this will happen. #Oman is actually at the final stage of debating how the financial support looks like and who will be the champions… 1/ https://t.co/xAspQemMUS
But with regional polarities so stark, Bianco believes it’s unlikely that a GCC-led bailout will be immune from any politicisation:
#Oman being #Oman, it is pursuing a collective #GCC option: something that instead of deepening the intra-GCC crisis, would be a first step towards solving it. This is why they wanted #Kuwait on board asap. 2/
Against this backdrop, Oman’s position now appears to be a precarious balancing act: as it attempts to preserve diplomatic independence without alienating neighbours, while trying to secure much-needed investment, trade – and now financial aid – to stave off economic collapse.
Unanimous vote by Pratinidhi Sabha gives legal stamp to inclusion of Indian territory.
The Lower House of Nepal’s Parliament on Saturday unanimously passed the historic Second Constitution Amendment Bill guaranteeing legal status for the updated political map of Nepal which includes India’s territories in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district.
The voting in the Pratinidhi Sabha (House of Representatives) came after day-long discussions, which included praise from co-chair of the Nepal Communist Party Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” for the Nepalese democracy, which, he said, is reversing centuries of diplomatic humiliation.
Not tenable: India
Responding to the development, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it had “noted” the legislative process.
“The artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues,” said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.
The territorial dispute stems from the fact that Nepal claims the land to the east of river Kali, which forms the country’s western border. As per Kathmandu’s understanding, the river originates from Limpiyadhura in the higher Himalayas, giving it access to a triangular-shaped land defined by Limpiyadhura-Lipulekh and Kalapani. India opposes the notion and says the origin of the river is much further down, which reduces Nepal’s territorial demand.
Saturday’s amendment was approved through a voice vote, following which all the members of the Pratinidhi Sabha gave individual signatures to the Bill which completed the voting process.
The voting showed that members from all the political parties of the Pratinidhi Sabha voted in favour of the motion moved by the government of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli.
Apart from the ruling Nepal Communist Party, the amendment received support of the Nepali Congress and the newly formed Janata Samajvadi Party-Nepal.
The total votes cast in favour were 258 and no one voted against the bill though 11 members remained absent or abstained. It is not clear yet why they did not vote. Four members including Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar, the leading figure of indigenous Tharu community, have been suspended and could not participate in the proceedings.
“I hearby declare the Second Constitution Amendment passed with two-thirds majority,” Speaker of the Pratidhi Sabha Agni Sapkota announced amidst celebrations.
Immediately after the passing of the bill, Nepal’s senior officials began sending out social media messages which indicated the diplomatic angle of the territorial dispute.
“The House of Representatives (Pratinidhi Sabha) unanimously adopted the Constitution Amendment Bill, paving the way for accommodating the updated political-administrative map in the national emblem,” said Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali, who also attached an image of the Coat of Arms showing the new map, including Indian territories.
The concluding session witnessed passionate speeches by the members of the parliament. The most important intervention of the day came from Prachanda, who described the day as a historic moment for Nepal.
“We are working to ensure territorial integrity national sovereignty and freedom of our people. The kings of Nepal lost our territory, but today we republicans are restoring it,” he said to applause from the other members. The unanimous voting was made possible by the cross party support ensured by Mr Oli’s government.
Nepal unveiled the new map on May 20 after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated Darchula-Lipulekh link road on May 8. Nepal had earlier strongly protested when the updated Indian map published in November last year showed the region as part of Uttarakhand.
Nepal claims right to the region and says India was allowed to station troops there in the 1950s and that Delhi has refused to remove forces from the region ever since. Nepal’s Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe tabled the amendment bill on May 31 and the necessary month long discussion was fast tracked.
During the debates, Prime Minister Oli, Foreign Minister Gyawali, Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and Madhesi leaders like Mahanta Thakur and Rajendra Mahato addressed the house.
The diplomatic fallout of the territorial dispute, is likely to be serious, said former foreign minister and Nepalese commentator Ramesh Nath Pandey, who warned of difficult days ahead for Nepal-India relations as well as for South Asian region.
“Now, Indo-Nepal border negotiations will be all the more complicated as secretaries have no right to negotiate on the provisions of our Constitution,” said Mr. Pandey. He argued that the territorial dispute of Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh cannot be resolved at talks led by Foreign Secretaries or senior envoys as the disputed territories are now part of Nepal’s constitution and public imagination.
A powerful bomb blast ripped through a crowded market in Pakistan’s garrison city of Rawalpindi, killing one person and injuring 12 others including three children. The blast, triggered through an improvised explosive device containing 2-3 kgs of explosives, occurred late on Friday night at Kola Centre of Kabari Bazaar which is not very far from the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army.
Police spokesperson Sajidul Hassan told Dawn News that initial reports suggest that the explosive material was attached to an electric pole. Properties around the site have been damaged in the blast. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital, where two of them were stated to be in a critical condition.
The Counter Terror Department (CTD) and the Army personnel rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area for investigation.The police spokesperson said that investigative teams and people from the forensics science lab were collecting evidence.
The official said that the blast was an “attempt at organised terrorism but those playing with the lives of the public would not be able to escape the law.”
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred when the country is battling the coronavirus pandemic.
A two-thirds majority was required in the 275-member House of Representatives or the lower house to pass the bill.
The lower house of Nepal’s parliament on Saturday unanimously passed the historic Second Constitution Amendment Bill guaranteeing legal status for the updated political map of Nepal which includes India’s territories in Pithoragarh district.
The voting came after day long discussion which also included Maoist leader Prachanda’s praise for the Nepal Communist Party which he said is reversing centuries of diplomatic humiliation of Nepal.
The motion was approved through voice vote following which all the members of the House of Representatives (Pratinidhi Sabha) gave individual signatures to the bill which completed the voting process. The voting showed all members of the Pratinidhi Sabha voted in favour of the motion moved by the government of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.
Following this amendment, the region of Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh located at present in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand will be part of the map of Nepal which will be included in Nepal’s national emblem. “I hear by declare the Second Constitution Amendment passed with two-thirds majority,” announced Agni Sapkota, Speaker of Pratidhi Sabha, amidst celebrations.
Immediately after the passing of the bill, Nepal’s senior officials began sending out social media messages which indicated the diplomatic angle of the territorial dispute. “The House of Representatives (Pratinidhi Sabha) unanimously adopted the Constitution Amendment Bill, paving the way for accommodating the updated political-administrative map in the national emblem” said Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali who also attached an image of the national emblem showing the new map which included the Indian territories.
The concluding session witnessed passionate speeches by the members of the parliament. The most important intervention of the day came from Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” who described the day as a historic moment for Nepal. “We are working to ensure territorial integrity national sovereignty and freedom of our people. The kings of Nepal lost our territory, but today we republicans are restoring it,” said Mr Prachanda as the MPs applauded. The unanimous voting was made possible by the cross party support ensured by Mr Oli’s government.
Mr Oli’s Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has 174 seats which was bolstered by the support of main opposition Nepali Congress which extended its block of 63 MPs to support the amendment. The Madhesi MPs also extended support to the move which paved the way for the unanimous adoption of the new map. The Ministry of External Affairs is yet to respond to the Second Constitution Amendment.
Nepal unveiled the new map on May 20 after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated Darchula-Lipulekh link road on May 8. Nepal had earlier strongly protested when the updated Indian map published in November last year showed the region as part of Uttarakhand. Nepal claims right to the region and says India was allowed to station troops there in the 1950s and that Delhi has refused to remove forces from the region ever since. Nepalese minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe tabled the amendment bill on May 31 and the necessary month long discussion was fast tracked as expected. During the debates, Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, Foreign Minister Gyawali, Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and Madhesi leaders like Mahanta Thakur and Rajendra Mahato addressed the house.
The diplomatic fallout of the territorial dispute, is likely to be serious said former foreign minister and Nepalese commentator Ramesh Nath Pande who warned of difficult days ahead for Nepal-India relation as well as for South Asian region. “Now, Indo-Nepal border negotiations will be all the more complicated as secretaries have no right to negotiate on the provisions of our constitution,” said Mr Pandey explaining that the territorial dispute of Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh can not be solved by dialogues led by Foreign Secretaries or senior envoys as the disputed territories are now part of Nepal’s constitution and public imagination.
