Kathmandu, 3 June:The Government has clarified that Nepal never backed any military alliance and the defence cooperation being extended to Nepal from the United States has nothing to do with Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday clarified that Nepal never backed any forces and will never do so in future.
“The USA has expanded a defence relationship with Nepal, focusing on high availability/disaster recovery, peacekeeping operations, defence professionalisation, ground force capacity, and counter-terrorism as a part of bilateral cooperation and has nothing to do with Indo-Pacific Strategy,” said Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali responding to a query posed by People’s Review.
The Indo-Pacific strategy has triggered a huge debate in Nepal after the US sought Nepal’s central role in it during the meeting of Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in December last year. The Indo-Pacific strategy is widely seen as a strategic move of the US to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative
People’s News Monitoring Service
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