- 1
Mr Archer
ANGLO/NEPAL RELATIONS
DE
cc Mr McLaren
SEAD
2026/14
VED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
-
· 9 AUG 1979
OFFICER
FA
Min
32678 M Mr Web! PA шара
He
Governor's visits to hode.
1. I had lunch today with the Nepalese Ambassador. wanted to raise an immigration problem affecting his nephew. I have spoken to Mr Jones in M&VD about this.
2. In the course of a wide-ranging discussion we covered the following points:-
a) Internal developments in Nepal. The Ambassador said that a referendum could not for practical reasons be called before the spring of next year. In the meantime he seemed to think that the political situation would be relatively stable. Mr Koirala was free and able to carry out a campaign.
b) Gurkhas. The Ambassador said that Indian recruitment of Gurkhas was now concentrated on people of Nepalese origin living in India. Direct Indian recruitment from Nepal had greatly declined. Indian Gurkhas provided very little foreign exchange for Nepal. This contrasted with the Gurkhas recruited by the United Kingdom. I suggested that it might be useful if the Ambassador could visit Hong Kong at some stage. He said that unfortunately his Government would never pay his fare for this purpose. We might however bear in mind the possibility of including the Nepalese Ambassador in some occasion when the Governor of Hong Kong is in London.
c) Relations with India. The Ambassador was concerned about the likely attitude of the new Indian Government towards Nepal. He clearly fears that India's ultimate intention is to reduce Nepal to a status similar to that of Bhutan.
d) Non-aligned movement I urged that at the non-aligned summit in Havana Nepal should take a firm line over both Vietnamese refugees and Cambodia, and spoke along the lines of our telegram No 265 to Accra.
e) King of Nepal's visit to London. I said that we had heard that the King would be visiting London. Could he give us any more details about what the King would wish to do? The timing was difficult: the Queen would be at Balmoral and Ministers on holiday, but we would like to do whatever we could for the King. The Ambassador said that he had not yet raised this with us officially as he was still awaiting full information from Kathmandu. He thought that the Foreign Minister would be with the King.
•
CONFIDENTIAL
/f)