High Level Visits as per Need, Passport Service to be Smooth Soon: MoFA

The government has said it will continue high-level visits as needed while deepening relationships with all friendly countries.

At the regular news conference held today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Joint Secretary and Spokesperson Lok Bahadur Paudel Kshetri informed that the government is preparing for a high-level visit according to established diplomatic practices.

Spokesperson Kshetri mentioned that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is ready to facilitate Chairman Rabi Lamichhane’s visit to China based on the request of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), and said that all visits will be carried out on a diplomatic basis.

“Visits or exchanges between political parties are the matter of the respective parties. If there arises a situation where coordination or diplomatic facilitation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required for such visits, the Ministry will provide the necessary facilitation based on the request of the concerned political party,” he said.

In response to a question, he said the ministry was not aware of Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s chief advisor Kumar Ben’s visit to India.

He mentioned that cultural diplomacy is an important aspect of every country’s diplomatic practice and also informed that the government has adopted a policy to make it more effective and stronger.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has said the problems surfaced in course of introduction to the new passport system would be solved gradually.

After solving the problems, passport service would be run smoothly as in the past.

Joint secretary Chhetri, informed that the Ministry and Passport Department were committed to providing passports to the Nepali citizens in a convenient and effective manner.

Receiving live passport applications began with the enforcement of new system since July 13, he said, adding that total 8,260 copies of passports had been printed so far under the new system.

The applications for passport are received from the Department of Passport, 77 District Administration Offices, six Area Administration Offices and 31 diplomatic missions.

Eight diplomatic missions abroad can receive applications online at any time. Spokesperson Paudel further informed that the new system was currently at a stage of stabilization, so technical hitches were not unexpected.

A technical team is involved in fixing the problems, Paudel added. According to him, even an agreement was made with the Department of Postal Service to deliver the printed passports to the concerned administration offices in districts and area.

The government has also launched a process to enforce the system which facilitates citizens to apply for the passport from any district.(RSS)