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Top US official arriving in Kathmandu coming Sunday

USAID administrator Power to visit in February

Nepalkhabar

 |  Kathmandu

United States top officials Semantha Power (left) and Victoria Nuland.

United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland will be arriving in Kathmandu coming Sunday, sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

She will be the top US diplomat to visit Nepal after Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda became the prime minister in last December.

During her two-day stay, Nuland will meet Prime Minister Prachanda and Foreign Minister Bimala Rai Paudyal, an official at the ministry said.

During the visit, the US diplomat is expected to get firsthand information on the Prachanda-led coalition government's attitude towards the US-Nepal cooperation.

Apart from that she will also enquire about the progress in executing projects under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Nepal Compact. Nepal's parliament ratified the MCC Nepal Compact in February last year and it is coming into force this year if things go as planned.

After taking charge as the US Under Secretary for Political Affairs in April 2021, she visited other South Asian countries except Nepal.  

"This will be sort of her familiarization trip to Nepal," the official added.

In a meeting with Foreign Minister Paudyal, the US ambassador to Nepal Dean R Thompson had communicated her about the visit of the top US official.

“I look forward to working with Foreign Minister Rai Paudyal,” Ambassador Thompson had tweeted after meeting Paudyal. “It was a pleasure to congratulate her and discuss our goals for US-Nepal relations. Our relationship is important as two sovereign, democratic nations with strong people-to-people ties.”

It was Ambassador Thompson's first meeting with the foreign minister after she took charge one and half weeks ago.

Meanwhile, US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Samantha Power is also likely to visit Nepal in February. Officials at the ministry said that dates are being worked out to finalize the exact dates for the visit.

Who is Nuland?
Prior to taking the present role, she was Senior Counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm based in Washington, DC.  She was also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Distinguished Practitioner in Grand Strategy at Yale University, and a Member of the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Nuland, a U.S. diplomat for 33 years served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from September 2013 until January 2017 under President Obama and Secretary Kerry.  She was State Department Spokesperson during Secretary Hillary Clinton’s tenure, and U.S. Ambassador to NATO during President George W. Bush’s second term, 2005-2008. 

Nuland served as Special Envoy and chief negotiator on the Treaty on Conventional Arms Control in Europe from 2010-2011, and as Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney from 2003-2005.  In addition to two tours at NATO in Brussels, she has served overseas in Russia, China and Mongolia, and in various assignments at the State Department in Washington.



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