KATHMANDU: The United States will have more engagements with China in the coming weeks, US Under-Secretary of State Nuland, who is on a two-day Nepal visit, said on Monday.
“The United States wants to have good relations with both of Nepal’s big neighbors – India and China,” she told journalists in Patan on Monday.
“Our relationship with India is perfect. And President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to improve relations with China, Nepal’s neighbor,” she said.
Nuland further stated that rather than engaging in geopolitics with Nepal’s two big neighboring countries, the US wants Nepal to decide its own interests as a sovereign country.
She is the first high-ranking United States official to visit Nepal after the formation of the new government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda”.
On Monday, she remained busy in political meetings with Nepal’s top leaders, including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, CPN-UMl Chairman KP Oli, and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba.
During the meetings, she raised various issues of Nepal-US relations.
“I specifically talked about four issues such as strengthening democracy, Nepal-US partnership, supporting Nepal’s prosperity, and transitional justice,” she said.
Nuland said all US projects and engagements, including the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Nepal, are transparent and their implementation is vital for the benefit of the Nepali people.
Similarly, she added that she also discussed the transitional justice bill, creating a friendly environment for American investment in Nepal, among others, in those meetings.
“Quite a significant number of Americans are willing to invest in Nepal. We also discussed how to create an investment-friendly environment for them,” she said.
Nuland also said that she discussed with Nepali leaders making the fight against corruption effective.
“The fight against corruption is equally important in Nepal as well as America. We talked about how we can cooperate on that,” she said.
Stating that Nepal and America are both democratic countries, the relationship between the two countries will further strengthen in the future.
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