Washington, February 04: Though Nepal has traditionally looked towards India but China too has some role to play in this Himalayan nation, Ambassador-nominated to Nepal has told US lawmakers.
“I think that traditionally in many ways they have looked south where the border is more open and their engagement, their trade relationship and other relationships with India have always been fairly robust, but certainly the Chinese have played a role there as well,” Scotte H DeLisi, the US Ambassador-nominated to Nepal, said in his confirmation hearing before the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A career Foreign Service officer, DeLisi has served in the US missions in Mumbai, Islamabad, and Colombo and headed the Nepal desk at the State Department in Washington.
The hearing was chaired by Senator Jim Webb, Chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
“I think for us in our engagement in Nepal we certainly want to work closely with the government, but in doing that I think we have to recognize that we also have to talk to the other regional actors and that Nepal has the ability to play a role within the region,” DeLisi told lawmakers in response to a question form Senator Webb.
Kathmandu is also the headquarters for the SAARC Secretariat as well, he said.
“The Nepalese, generally they talk of themselves as a yam between two bounders. And it’s a delicate balancing act for them. There’s no question about it,” he said.
“I think we want to continue to see a stable Nepal that rests comfortably between its two large neighbours, and we can use that as a platform to engage, as I say, both China and India on some of the issues of regional concern,” DeLisi said.
“With India there are many cross-border issues that we’d like to be able to talk to them and look at some of these issues regionally.
Certainly when we look at China there’s the issue of the Tibetan refugees, and there are those refugees who are in Nepal and there’s an engagement there as well,” he said.
Earlier Senator Webb said Nepal is viewed as something of an interesting gateway between India and China.
He wanted to know from DeLisi how the United States can remain involved in Nepal in a way that could exert a similar sort of balance or even if that’s necessary.
—Agencies