By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 24: Minister for Communication and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota said on Thursday that the government had not come under any foreign influence after any high level visit.
"The government has just increased its engagement towards maintaining and further fostering bilateral relations with friendly nations," Minister Baskota, who is also the government spokesperson, said at a press conference organised to make the cabinet decision public.
Minister Baskota said that the bilateral engagement of Nepal with India, China and the U.S.A. had gone up in recent years and the same engagement would gradually increase with other nations in the days to come.
The government has a policy to maintain and increase such kind of bilateral engagement in deepening bilateral relations further in the days ahead, he said.
"Nepal has a traditional culture for maintaining good and positive bilateral relations with all our neighbouring countries, and we further want to consolidate it by keeping our common interests at the centre," Minister Baskota said.
Nepal became able to maintain its own type of foreign influence abroad following the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said.
Growth of foreign influence on Nepal is thus not just a one way process, it will be a two-way when any head of the government or state from India, the U.S. or other nations pay state visits to Nepal, he said.
“The government would be happy to have a positive influence of the nations with which we have bilateral relations,” he said. When any head of the state or the government visits Nepal, there would obviously be a positive influence in the country, he said.
When there are issues about security, economic progress, technology transfer, or receiving grants and investments, the government would like to work with the foreign countries simultaneously, he said.
"We will not ink any agreement under foreign influence of any country be it India, China or America,” he said.
The agreement, while receiving grant assistance from the U.S under MCC project, was done without coming under pressure of anybody or any nation, he said.
The agreement was inked based upon the mutual interest, cooperation and long bilateral relations, he said. This was all done for the development campaign and as per the objectives of the government, he said.
Speaking on the possibility of dialogue with the outlawed party led by Netra Bikram Chand, Minister Baskota said that the government would not trust the forces which have a habit of disguising time and again.
He said the conditions set forth by the outlawed party before sitting for the dialogue table could not be accepted at any cost.
"The ban will end within a second if they come to a table by accepting the constitution and shunning the violence," Minister Baskota said.
Commenting on the issue of former Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Minister Baskota said that nobody had freedom to go beyond the rule of law and prescribe legal provisions.
“The government is guided by the rule of law is committed to maintaining the good governance,” he said.
When asked whether the government was exacting political vendetta as one political figure after another started getting arrest warrant, Minister Baskota said that the government wasn’t taking political revenge with any political party, but it had to arrest a person or leader if she/he was implicated in a criminal charge.
"If politics is a service dedicated to the public, there could not be any criminalisation of the politics," he said.
He said the government was not taking any vendetta, but was maintaining the rule of law in the nation.