Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs KP Sharma Oli and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala have discussed the appointment of ambassadors to 13 countries.

According to reports, DPM Oli and the PM discussed the proposed candidates for the appointments.

According to sources, they discussed the names for the appointment in 10 countries in the first phase. Of the ten, three people are selected from the Foreign Ministry and rest from the three major alliances of the seven party alliance, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and NC (Democratic). The source also claimed that rest of the posts will be filled after Maoists were included in the interim government.

Those proposed Ambassadorial candidates are Surya Kiran Gurung, currently the General Secretary of the Parliament, to the United States; Dr Suresh Chalise, special advisor to PM for foreign affairs, to the United Kingdom, and Saileja Acharya, a NC central working committee member, to India.

Likewise Pradip Khatiwada is selected for Bangladesh, Hira Bahadur Thapa for France, Dinesh Bhattarai for Belgium and European Union. Rest of the candidates are those who are close to different parties, including Surya Kanta Mishra for Myanmar, Sahana Pradhan for Russia, Dr Madhu Ghimire for Thailand, Bal Bahadur Kunwar for Pakistan and Amit Ansari for Saudi Arabia. Tanka Karki has been proposed for China and Ganesh Yonjan has been named for Japan.

The source also claimed that the next cabinet meeting would pass the proposed names and then the Parliamentary Special Hearing Committee led by lawmaker Asta Laxmi Shakya would begin the hearing on the names.

The Historic proclamation of the parliament made the provision of special hearing of the persons to be appointed for the post before their appointment.