By Tenzin Choephel
Phayul Correspondent
Kathmandu, November 3: The US Government is still willing to resettle some 5000 Tibetans from Nepal. The issue has long been overdue after Nepalese Government refused cooperation under pressure from China.
Ellen Sauerbrey, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, who was in Nepal to oversee the progress of resettlement programs for Bhutanese refugees, said the decision was based on humanitarian grounds.
Speaking at a press conference at the US Embassy here, Ellen Sauerbrey, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, said her Government is still talking with the Government of Nepal for the resettlement of some 5000 Tibetan refugees.
Although she did not specifically mentioned the difficulties involved in resettling the Tibetan refugees at this time, Sauerbrey said United States “understands the sensitivities of the Nepalese government regarding the issue of Tibetan refugees”.
“We are talking about the sensitivity of the Government of Nepal to a very large and very immediate neighbor (China) and that is something that the Government of Nepal is going to have to address in the future. I traveled to China last year and the issue of Tibetan refugees has been part of the dialogue with China” she added.
Meanwhile the Nepalese Government has agreed to cooperate in the third-country resettlement of some 60,000 Bhutanese and the initial process of the first 3000 of them are to start next week.
Sauerbrey said she met with the Nepalese Prime Minister earlier in the day to talk about the Bhutanese resettlement program. She also said she raised the issue of the Tibetan resettlement issue, but said “We were not able to move forward with that but, we continue to be very interested…. We will talk about Tibetan refugee in the future… until we are able to work through the problem with the Government of Nepal, we will not begin processing Tibetans”.
“We understand the sensitivity of this issue to the Government of Nepal but, we are very hopeful that in the future we will be able to have a breakthrough and be able to help some of the Tibetans find a new life as well,” she said.
The United States’ decision on the resettlement of 5,000 Tibetan refugees was raised last year with the Nepalese Government but the issue did not progress because of the Himalayan nation’s fear that it might irritate China.
After Nepal and Bhutan, she would be traveling to Dharamsala, India and probably meet with officials of Tibetan Government in Exile and other Tibetans to have a better understanding of the situation of Tibetans in India.
Earlier in the morning, while visiting the Tibetan Reception Center here in Kathmandu, she said, “we were very interested in talking to some of the people who have just arrived coming across that very dangerous mountain crossing and it was really quite something to see the number of very small children that have made that dangerous crossing through the mountain pass to get here and are waiting… And move on to India”.
Three Tibetan officials, Mr Jigme, Mr Thinley Gyatso and Kelsang Chung received her at the Reception Center. Mr Jigme later said that he briefed her about the Tibetans and their problems in Nepal.
