London, February 25 – The European Parliament (EP) has called on the European Union Council of Ministers to impose smart sanctions against the ruling elites in government and the military until democracy is restored in Nepal.
At a meeting in Strasbourg it adopted a resolution “strongly condemning” the seizure of power by King Gyanendra on February 1 and the campaign of arbitrary arrests, censorship and general repression.
In the resolution it was stressed that any search for a solution by military means “will merely add to and prolong the suffering of the Nepalese people.”
The EP called for a negotiated and democratically based solution, which it stressed, was the only “sustainable way to end the current conflict”. King Gyanendra was asked to lift the state of emergency and to restore all fundamental freedoms.
The 732-member EP also asked all the parties in Nepal to work together to reestablish parliamentary democracy and to start a process to resolve the armed conflict.
The MEPs pressed the Nepalese Government to allow the Tibet Refugee Welfare Office (TRWO) and the representative office of the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu to resume operations, and expressed concern that the closure might be interpreted as a trade-off with China on the state of emergency.
