Most visiting foreign diplomats—senior or junior—in the past would get to meet Nepal’s top political leaders, including the prime minister. But that seems to be changing under the Balendra Shah government.

Shah, despite the request from the visiting side, did not meet Samir Paul Kapur, the United States assistant secretary of state, who arrived on a three-day tour of Nepal on April 20. Now, even as US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, 39, is arriving in Kathmandu on Thursday evening, Shah has not given his word for a meeting yet.

Gor is currently serving as the US ambassador to India and is known as a Trump insider. Besides entrusting him with the responsibility of serving as ambassador to India, Trump has also appointed him the special envoy for South and Central Asia. Gor’s designation as Trump’s special envoy to South and Central Asia makes him a higher-profile official than the assistant secretary of state, Kapur.

Even as Gor has already sought time for a meeting with Shah for Friday or at any other time of his convenience by Saturday, the prime minister has not made up his mind to meet the American diplomat. Gor is the highest-status diplomat visiting Nepal since the formation of the powerful Rastriya Swatantra Party government on March 27.

Multiple sources at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Post that, despite suggestions from various channels, the prime minister had not decided to meet Gor as of Wednesday evening.

If there is no sudden change in Shah’s plan, Gor will be meeting Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal, Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai and some other officials and leaders, as did Kapur 10 days back.

His meeting with the foreign minister and the foreign secretary has been confirmed, said Deepa Dahal, the press and investigation expert to Prime Minister Shah.

On behalf of Gor, several requests have been received for his meeting with the prime minister.

“But a meeting between the prime minister and Gor has not been confirmed,” Dahal told the Post, as the prime minister is busy with domestic affairs. The prime minister is mainly focusing on issues of good governance, she added.

According to informed sources, like Kapur, Gor will convey the message of helping the new government in Kathmandu in all possible ways, and that the US is ready to bring investment to Nepal, provided there are reforms to several laws.

As Gor has strong business and investment ties in Washington, the US side has indicated that the visit will focus on business and investment, a diplomatic source privy to the visit told the Post.

But the prime minister wants to set a benchmark of meeting only ministers or higher-level officials from foreign countries.

Previously, Ambassador Gor served as an assistant to the US President and as director of presidential personnel at the White House.

On the basis of Gor’s high-profile meetings with heads of state and government in the region, the American side has pushed for a meeting with Prime Minister Shah, who is reportedly firm on his decision not to meet ambassadors and junior officials from another country.

Sticking to his position, Shah met the ambassadors from different countries jointly on April 8.

Gor, in the capacity of special envoy of President Trump, had met with outgoing Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh multiple times and visited Bhutan, where he met with King Jigme Khesar Namgyel and Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay in the second week of March.

Later, in the third week of March, he travelled to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, met with Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, and, in Male, with Foreign Minister Abdulla Khaleel and Defence Minister Mohamed Ghassan Maumoon. But the President of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, cancelled his meeting with Gor as his protest against the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

Though Gor is travelling to Kathmandu for the first time, he has already engaged with the leadership of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Following the party's landslide victory in the March 5 election, Gor telephoned RSP President Rabi Lamichhane on March 25 and congratulated the party on its electoral performance.

The United States looks forward to working with Nepal’s new government to strengthen economic cooperation and further deepen ties between the two countries, the US Embassy in Kathmandu said in a post on X on March 25.