Newton News Service

---

Nepali PM urges repatriation of Bhutanese Posted: 09 Feb 2010 10:02 PM PST Kathmandu, Feb 10 : Nepali Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal this morning asked the Bhutanese Minister for Economic Affairs Wangchuk to take back the exiled Bhutanese. “The third country resettlement alone would not solve the problem,” Nepal’s foreign advisor Rajan Bhattarai quoted Nepali PM as saying to Wangchuk. According to Bhattarai, Nepal also expressed his concern regarding the increasing suicidal trend among resettled Bhutanese in third countries. In a response, Wangchuk committed that he would take the issue with the Bhutanese Prime Minister after his return. Wangchuck, who reached Nepal yesterday as a special envoy, handed over invitation of Jigmi Y Thinley to Nepali PM in his official residence for the 16th Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to be held in Thimpu from April 28 – 29.

BNDP calls for reconciliation Posted: 09 Feb 2010 06:04 PM PST Jhapa, Feb.10: Bhutan National Democratic Party has called for fresh movement to make a path clear for national reconciliation and repatriation of exiled Bhutanese. On the occassion of its 18th foundation day, on 7th February, BNDP set 2010 as the year of consolidating Bhutanese political movement. ‘Given the undercurrent of political frustration of the people inside the country under the so called democratic governance and the state of anxiety among a section of the Bhutanese refugees who are waiting in the camps for repatriation to Bhutan, BNDP has decided to work towards consolidation of the political movement and re-launching of the Satyagrah Movement which was undertaken earlier by the elderly people with the objective of national reconciliation and repatriation’, reads its press realese signed by the party’s Executive Chief ,Dr. DNS Dhakal. The party has also said that the basis of the national reconciliation could be genuine political reforms in the system of governance, repatriation of willing refugees and restitution of their properties in Bhutan, and the issue of non-resident Bhutanese (NRB) especially those who have gone or would go abroad under third country resettlement program. Since its formation in 1992, BNDP claims to have been lobbying for a durable solution to the refugee problem and genuine political reform in Bhutan.