Australia’s Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday on a two-day Nepal visit.

According to the Australian Embassy in Kathmandu, the visit will focus on underlining Australia’s close and growing relationship with Nepal and explore opportunities for future engagement.

Assistant Minister Watts will pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Foreign Minister NP Saud and convey Australia’s appreciation of its close cooperation with Nepal over 63 years of diplomatic relations and thriving people-to-people linkages, reads the statement by the embassy.

The Nepali community is Australia’s fastest-growing migrant population, currently around 130,000.

Watts will also hand over a 13th-century wooden tunala (temple strut) from Ratneshwar Temple at Sulima Square to the local community in a ceremony organised at Patan Museum.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales has returned this vital artefact to Nepal and will be represented at the handover by Director Michael Brand.

He will also visit Kathmandu University, BioVac Nepal in Banepa, Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology and religious and historic sites at Pashupatinath and Bouddhanath.

The visit to Nepal is part of a four-country program that includes his participation in the sixth Indian Ocean Conference in Bangladesh, and bilateral visits to Bhutan and India, the embassy said.