Kathmandu, Aug 2 (PTI) Nepal’s newly-elected Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli is most likely to choose Thailand as the destination of his first foreign trip, breaking the tradition of visiting a neighbouring country first.
In the past, Nepalese Prime Ministers mostly paid visits to India first, with some exceptions of choosing China as their first destination.
Prime Minister Oli is scheduled to pay a visit to Thailand in the first week of September to attend the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Summit, according to official sources.
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An aide to Oli said that the Prime Minister will visit Thailand tentatively in the first week of September as his first foreign entourage to attend the BIMSTEC summit, though details of the visit are yet to be finalised.
The leaders of member countries of BIMSTEC including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand are meeting in Bangkok in the first week of September to attend the summit of the regional body.
Prime Minister Oli will then visit the US in the third week of September to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
“So far, we have not yet received any official invitation for a visit to India,” said the aide to the Prime Minister.
Oli, the chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) was elected Prime Minister on July 14. He assumed office after the coalition government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ lost a vote of confidence in Parliament.
Meanwhile, The Kathmandu Post newspaper said the previous government’s decision to recall Nepal’s ambassadors from India and China made Prime Minister Oli’s visit to either of the neighbours almost impossible in August.
The earlier government of CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre had recalled Shanker Sharma and Bishnu Pukar Shrestha from India and China, respectively, but following a change in the ruling coalition earlier this month, the government decided to reappoint Sharma to India.
Similarly, Krishna Prasad Oli is set to replace Shrestha in Beijing. Shrestha and four other envoys have been asked to return to Kathmandu by the end of August, the paper said. PTI SBP NSA AKJ
