Chief of Army Staff (CoA) Prabhu Ram Sharma is set to travel to the United States of America.
During the visit, he is expected to hold high-level talks with US officials on expanding defense cooperation. In recent years, the US is keen to enhance the defense collaboration with Nepal.
Similarly, senior US military officials are also visiting Nepal.
The Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, unveiled by the US Department of Defense on 1 June 2019, clearly talks about enhancing defense partnership with South Asian countries, including Nepal. “Within South Asia, we are working to operationalize our Major Defense Partnership with India, while pursuing emerging partnerships with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal,” the document says.
“The United States seeks to expand our defense relationship with Nepal, focused on HA/DR [humanitarian assistance/disaster relief], peacekeeping operations, defense professionalization, ground force capacity, and counter-terrorism. Our growing defense partnership can be seen in the establishment of the US Army Pacific-led Land Forces Talks in June 2018, our senior-most military dialogue with Nepal,” the document further says.
Coming to the present day, for 2019-2020, the US has increased Nepal’s training and equipment budget by nearly $65 million. It has supported disaster response in various provinces as well. In 2019, the US provided a big chunk of military assistance to Nepal including sky trucks, light cargo, and passenger aircraft.
