Five weeks after Nepal’s decision that it won’t be part of the United States’ State Partnership Program, Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Affairs, is arriving in Kathmandu.

Diplomatic and government sources told the Post that Lu will arrive in Kathmandu on Thursday on a two-day visit.

This is his second visit to Nepal since November last year and first since Nepal’s Parliament ratified the US$500 million Millenium Challenge Corporation compact after months of controversy.

Lu is set to hold talks with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka on Friday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Though Lu’s visit is said to be for handing out an award declared by the US embassy in Kathmandu, at least two knowledgeable sources the Post spoke to said that he aims to assuage concerns surrounding the State Partnership Program, which has become a new political hot potato in Nepal.

After controversy over Nepal’s participation in the SPP, the government on June 21 decided that it won’t participate in the scheme, which critics say has security and military components and participation in it could put American boots on the Nepali ground.

Just as Nepali politicians engaged in a blame game, it was the US embassy which made it public that Nepal was accepted in the SPP in 2019 after two requests in 2015 and 2017.

In 2015, the SPP was not designated in the Indo-Pacific Strategy and only focused on disaster risk reduction, rescue operation, and disaster preparedness, among others.

Later in 2019, a US Defense Department’s report listed Nepal as a country newly inducted to the SPP and in 2019 December, the State Department also gifted two sky trucks to Nepal under the SPP arrangement.

The SPP saga resurfaced in Kathmandu after the visit of Commanding General of United States Army Pacific Command Charles A Flynn in the second week of June. As soon as Gen Flynn wrapped up his Nepal visit on June 12, a six-page draft on the SPP was leaked to some sections of the media.

And then all hell broke loose.

The US embassy sharply reacted, calling it fake. But the controversy would not die down.

The International Relations Committee of Parliament summoned Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka and Chief of the Army Staff General Prabhu Ram Sharma to make Nepal’s position clear on the SPP.

Both Khadka and Sharma told the House committee that Nepal has not made any request to the US to become a partner in the SPP and as per Nepal’s stated foreign policy, Nepal will not be part of any military alliance.

But a Nepal Army dispatch dated October 27, 2015 to then US ambassador Alaina B Teplitz, which was leaked to the media, showed Nepal had requested for participation in the SPP.

Deuba ignored the House committee’s summons.

Under pressure, the Deuba government in a reactive approach decided not to be part of the SPP.

The US embassy maintains that participating in the SPP is any country’s sovereign decision and a country can simply write to the US government if it wishes to terminate the partnership.

The Foreign Ministry, however, is yet to write to the US even more than a month since the government decision on the SPP.

On Wednesday, the International Relations Committee of the Parliament decided to ask the government why it did not write a letter to the US government regarding its decision on the SPP despite repeated calls from party leaders.

“Why has the letter not been sent to the US despite the government's decision that Nepal will not be part of the SPP,” said Pabitra Niraula, chair of the House committee. “We have not received any documents related to the SPP.”

Now, amid highly charged debates over the SPP, Lu’s visit to Nepal has piqued curiosity in Kathmandu.

Sridhar Khatri, Nepali ambassador to the United States, however, says the visit is the continuation of high-level exchanges from both sides.

“US officials are trying to assure the prominence of Nepal to its South Asian thinking,” Khatri told the Post from Washington by phone. “The ongoing controversy over the SPP in Nepal should not be seen from a ‘nefarious geopolitical angle’ as the issue has been blown out of proportion in Nepal.”

Lu made headlines in Nepal in February after he held separate telephone talks with Prime Minister Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli with regard to the MCC compact.

According to officials and politicians familiar with the conversations, the message from Washington was it would be forced to review its Nepal policy should the MCC compact fail parliamentary ratification. Nepal ratified the compact on February 27 after attaching an interpretative declaration.

Ambassador Khatri said some sections in Nepal are trying to make the SPP an agenda for upcoming elections, which is natural but it should not affect bilateral ties with the US and must not hurt any friendly country’s sentiments.

“The SPP was dragged into controversy for nothing, as I don’t see any reason to make the issue controversial. Since the election process is moving ahead, some are trying to make this a bilateral issue and an election agenda,” he told the Post. “Lu’s visit should be seen as the continuation of high-level exchanges between Nepal and the US.”

Ever since the passage of the MCC compact, there has been a flurry of visits from the US, but there has been a lack of reciprocation from the Nepali side.

The controversy over the SPP arose weeks before Prime Minister Deuba’s proposed visit to the US.

Deuba was initially supposed to travel to Washington in mid-July in the first official visit by a sitting prime minister in two decades. But the visit became uncertain after the SPP row.

Earlier this month, the Foreign Ministry said the prime minister’s visit “is expected” but last week it said the visit “is yet to be confirmed.”

On Friday, Upendra Yadav, a former foreign minister and chair of the Janata Samajbadi Party, a coalition partner of the incumbent government, said that the coalition partners advised the prime minister to put the visit to the US on hold in view of various reasons including internal situation of the country.

“It is not that the prime minister’s visit will not take place or that he will not go, but we have put this visit on hold for now because of internal reasons,” said Yadav at an interaction.

Lu is arriving in Nepal weeks after Nepal Army Chief Sharma visited the US where he held talks with top American military officials.

Some foreign policy observers see Lu’s visit, especially after the MCC compact’s passage, as the US’ renewed interest in Nepal given its geopolitical location, with a view to expanding its partnership with a country with which it shares 75 years of diplomatic ties.

China, Nepal’s northern neighbour, didn’t hide its displeasure when the US was pressing for the MCC compact’s passage, and in the aftermath, at least two high-level visits have taken place from Beijing—one in March by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and another by Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, earlier this month.

“US officials are looking for more and direct engagements with Nepal following the ratification of the MCC Nepal Compact,” said Vijay Kant Karna, former Nepali ambassador to Denmark, who currently heads the Centre for Social Inclusion and Federalism, a Kathmandu-based think tank. “The way meddling has started after the MCC compact’s ratification in the name of the SPP in Nepal, the Americans seem to be feeling uncomfortable. I think the visit is focused on this issue as well and the US top official aims to assuage concerns surrounding it.”