Norway Lends Hands To Nepal For Conflcit Resolution
Indra Adhikari, Kathmandu
A team of experts from Norway has arrived in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu on March 5 to help solved the armed
conflict of Nepal. They said they willing to build confidence between the king, parties and rebelion negotiation.
Addressing a seminar organised jointly by the Nepal Council of World Affairs and the Norwegian Embassy in the capital,
the peace experts stressed the role of civil society in resolving the conflict. They said that third party involement
was necessary in Nepali context to build confidence between the two warring groups to sit for peace talks.
Fredrik Arthur, currently a counsellor at the Norwegian mission to the United Nations in Geneva as said that the
Nepalese government has to rule according to the will of the people and that the rebels are part of its citizens whose
issues have to be addressed by the state. State should be more responsible than the insurgents, he added.
Other member of the team Tore Hattrem, who is the deputy Director General at the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, said the
country and the people in the responsible positions should identify and address the needs of all armed and non-armed
parties in the conflict.
He added that the agitating political parties should also come to the negotiating table. Hattrem added that internal
armed conflicts are very difficult to solve and that the conflict won't end with an armed takeover of the state. It
lingers in the society in the countryside, he added.
Addressing the seminar, Norwegian ambassador to Nepal Tore Toreng said Norway was ever ready to work for negotiations in
Nepal if it is invited by both the warring groups. Toreng said that there should be willingness in both the warring
groups to solve the conflict. It's up to Nepal to decide what sort of help it wants, he said.
Norway has been playing important role in peace negotiation in Sri Lanka and repeatedly said that it was willing to help
Nepal for negotiation. The government has been defying the involvement of third party for negotiation in Nepal's
conflict. The royalists say the involvement of third party is foreign interference into internal issue. Maoists on the
other side have said that they were interested in laying down arms in presence of reliable third party like the UN.
ENDS