Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal halted Foreign Minister Bimala Rai Paudyal’s visit to Geneva hours before she was due to board the plane.
Paudyal was scheduled to leave for Geneva on a 6 pm flight, but a phone call from the prime minister’s office at around 3:30 pm halted his visit, according to Paudyal’s press coordinator Yashoda Adhikari.
“PM called me in the morning and asked me when I was leaving for Geneva. I said I am leaving today,” Minister Paudyal told Setopati after the visit was halted. “A phone call from the chief secretary came to the ministry at around 3:30 in the afternoon, even as he was preparing me to leave for the airport, saying that the foreign minister should not go.”
Paudyal said she did not go to the airport after the phone call came in to insult her. She had organized a press conference at 11am on Sunday to inform her that she was leaving for Geneva today.
She said she was not given any reason to stop the visit.
