Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has skipped the meeting of the Parliamentary International Relations Committee citing his busy schedule and saying that his US visit has to be fixed.

The House committee had summoned Deuba to discuss the ongoing controversy over Nepal’s participation in the US government’s State Partnership Program as well as his planned visit to Washington.

According to Pabitra Niroula Kharel, chairperson of the committee, the prime minister informed that he won’t be able to attend the meeting only at 8am.

The meeting scheduled for 10 am started at 11am.

House committee members, including CPN (Unified Socialist) chair Madhav Kumar Nepal, left the meeting after learning that the prime minister was not coming.

After quizzing Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka and Nepal Army Chief General Prabhu Ram Sharma on Friday, the House committee had asked Prime Minister Deuba to appear before it on Sunday.

Nepal’s participation in the SPP has become a hotly debated political issue, with all the parties offering conflicting views.

The US says Nepal’s application to become part of the SPP was accepted in 2019 after two requests in 2015 and 2017.

Deuba is learnt to have skipped the House committee meeting saying his US visit is not fixed yet.

“The prime minister has informed the committee that he will attend the meeting only after a formal decision on his US visit,” said Pushpa Bhusal, whip of the Nepali Congress and a member of the committee.

Deuba is likely to fly to Washington in mid-July, in the first official visit by a sitting prime minister in two decades.

According to an aide to the Prime Minister Deuba, he didn’t attend the meeting because the committee had not checked his schedule before summoning him and had not taken any confirmation.

“How can the prime minister attend the meeting without managing his schedule?” said Govinda Pariyar, press chief to the prime minister. “The only reason he didn’t attend is that the committee had not confirmed time with the prime minister.”

The committee wanted to ask Deuba also about his planned US visit and seek his commitment that he won’t sign any deals that can have long-term implications for Nepal.

On Friday, Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka told the House committee that the chapter of SPP has ended for Nepal and there will be no agreement to this regard. In the same meeting Army Chief General Sharma said the army was against the SPP and that there will be no agreement to this effect during his US visit.

He will be visiting the Pentagon later this month.

Prime Minister Deuba has been avoiding the House where a number of ruling and opposition lawmakers have been demanding his response on the ongoing controversy over the SPP and his visit to the US.

The members of the International Relations Committee include former prime minister and UML Chair KP Sharma Oli, its senior vice-chair and former deputy prime minister Ishwar Pokhrel, former foreign ministers Pradeep Gyawali and Sujata Koirala, UML leader Bhim Rawal and Congress leader Prakash Man Singh, Maoist leaders Krishna Bahadur Mahara and Surendra Kumar Karki among others.