Nepal's Foreign Minister, Shisir Khanal, met with foreign ministers from three countries today. He met Finland's Elina Valtonen, Pakistan's Ishaq Dar and Iceland's Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir.
All of these events are what we call sidelines of the high-level session of the 81st United Nations General Assembly.In each meeting, Khanal talked about the similar thing: the floods that hit Nepal last month and how much help Nepal still needs. Each leader offered sympathy and had conversations about working with Nepal in the future especially focused on climate change and disaster planning.
Finland : Thanks and a Climate PromiseKhanal met Finland's foreign minister on Wednesday. He thanked her for Finland's support after the floods.
During the conversations he also put forward the point that Nepal still plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2045. Valtonen also expressed Finland's interest and eagerness to work and help Nepal. She said Finland wants to work more closely with Nepal on three things: fighting climate change, sharing technology and learning from each other's development experience.
Pakistan: Sympathy and Closer TiesKhanal also met Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar. Khanal briefed Dar on the scale of the flood disaster and its impact on Nepal's people and infrastructure. Dar responded by conveying condolences on behalf of Pakistan for the loss of life and destruction and affirmed that Pakistan stands with Nepal and Nepali during this difficult period. During the meeting, views were exchanged on the cordial and cooperative relations between Nepal and Pakistan. The need for further strengthening the cooperation in bilateral and multilateral forums including SAARC and the United Nations in a way that benefits both the countries were also discussed about.
Iceland: Working together on disastersIcelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir and Khanal also held a bilateral meeting at the United Nations Headquarter in New York today. With Gunnarsdóttir, the conversations of ministers were mainly centered around the devastating economic and humanitarian impacts of climate change, highlighting the recent Bhotekoshi floods in Nepal. Both emphasized on how the resource-constrained nations suffers the most from such disasters. To fix this, they called for governments and communities to work together on fast disaster relief and long term rebuilding. Both sides underscored that stronger international cooperation and global solidarity must be exercised to share resources and prepare better for improving climate disaster prepardness.
Khanal has met leaders from five different countries within a few days: Finland, Pakistan, Iceland, Germany and the United States. This reflects how Nepal is using this UN meeting as a chance to build stronger friendships with other countries. Since it has only been a month of the devastating Bhotekoshi flood with search and rescue operations still undergoing, most of Nepal's meetings and speech will address it on the context of climate change and related topics , as these are the frequents topics we have been hearing and experiencing the impact of on such a huge scale.
