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Nepal asked to honour principle of “non-refoulement”: Tibetan refugees should not be returned where their lives, religion, culture, language is threatened

US Secretary of the State Michael R Pompeo meeting Nepal’s Foreign Minister Gyawali. Courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nepal.

Dharamshala: The US Secretary of the State asked the Nepal government to honour the principle of “non-refoulement”, a cornerstone of international refugee law whereby asylum seekers or refugees can’t be forced to return to a country where they can be subjected to persecution.

According to a press release issued by the US Embassy to Nepal, US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo wrote a congratulatory letter to Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on completion of his first year in office.

In his note to the PM, Secretary Pompeo made a special mention regarding Tibetan refugees in Nepal and highlighted Nepal’s reassurance to protect the rights of Tibetans in Nepal, particularly the principle of non-refoulement.

“Recognizing your own experience as a political prisoner, I welcomed Foreign Minister Gyawali’s reassurance that Nepal would continue to protect the rights of Tibetans in Nepal, particularly the principle of non-refoulement, which ensures that individuals will not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or their religious, cultural, and linguistic freedoms,” reads Pompeo’s statement.

Secretary Pompeo’s meeting with Nepal’s Foreign Minister Gyawali, which he notes in his remarks to Oli, took place in December 2018 at the US State Department in Washington DC. This was the first bilateral meeting between the two countries in the last 17 years.

Signalling a renewed commitment to foster a partnership with Nepal, Pompeo urged the Nepal PM to participate in the Indo-Pacific strategy launched by the US to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region stating that the strategy is in Nepal’s interest.