By Our Reporter
Former foreign ministers and others have stressed the need for controlling the growing cultural invasion in Nepal. They also expressed their unhappy over the growing conversion drive.
Former Foreign Minister Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani said that Nepal should resist cultural invasions which have been manifested in the rapid conversion drive in the support of different missions.
“Nepal must resist cultural invasion, but it has failed to do so,” he said while speaking at an interaction on ‘Nepal’s diplomacy in present context’ organised by Nepal Council of World Affairs (NCWA) on Thursday.
He said that certain European countries’ thrust of diplomacy with Nepal has long been the expansion of Christianity and the latter should consider this while creating and practising diplomacy in the changing cultural context as well along with the dynamic international dealings.
Dr. Lohani said that rebalance was needed in Nepal’s relations with India and China.
“If we failed to rebalance our diplomatic and economic relations with India, then China will search for ways to enhance its influence in Nepal. We should go for co-existence,” he said.
Dr. Lohani, who had been the Finance Minister in the past, said that India still wanted to impose umbrella doctrine, as propagated by Jawaharlal Nehru after India’s independence, on Nepal.
Former Foreign Affairs Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey said that Nepal should create strategy for track-two diplomacy and orientation should be provided to all the stakeholders, including the private sector and media.
He said that the Institute of Foreign Affairs should be upgraded and strengthened in order to produce qualified and capable diplomats who can push national interest in the international context.
Former Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat recommended developing diplomatic policy with Nepal’s national, economic, strategic and security interests at the centre.
“We should create equilibrium in our relations with India and China. We have made the diplomacy an issue of the streets which should be immediately stopped,” he said.
He said that the present government must be serious about exercising the rights of the landlocked country.
He criticised the government for patronising the controversial Asia Pacific Summit which was against the spirits of the Constitution.
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