Good news: Minister in 'iterim govt' Suresh Ale Magar's has been held up by US Embassy in KTM. Please comment after the article: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- US embassy holds up visa for Maoist leader BY TILAK P. POKHAREL KATHMANDU, April 19 - The United States Embassy in Kathmandu has held up a visa for a top Maoist leader preparing to go to New York to participate in a United Nations program on transitional justice, among other activities. Maoist Central Committee member Suresh Ale Magar is among 10 persons including senior government officials and civil society and political party leaders scheduled to go to New York and then on to Peru for the program. Though all the other members have obtained US visas and are flying on Friday, Magar is still waiting for "clearance from the State Department" because his party is still a designated terrorist group and it's illegal under US law to issue visas to members of such groups. On Thursday, the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) forwarded a letter from Lynn Pascoe, the UN Under Secretary-General for the Department of Political Affairs, to US Ambassador James F Moriarty, requesting the latter to issue visas to them, without naming any person. "While the delegation is on the New York leg of its trip, it has been invited to meetings at UN Headquarters in New York," said Kieran Dwyer, the UNMIN spokesperson. The US provides "visa with certain restrictions (on their movement)" to persons belonging to US-banned organizations and groups who are going to participate in UN programs. "The organizers have told me that the State Department has to give clearance to issue me the visa, which may happen tomorrow or the day after," Magar told the Post. The participants have also been invited by the New York-based Asia Society to participate in a discussion on Nepal, "The Road to Peace", on April 25. The participants' travel and other expenses are being sponsored by the Nepal Transition to Peace Initiative, a project of the Washington DC-based Academy for Educational Development with financial support from USAID and the Swiss Development Cooperation. The delegation that comprises (besides Magar) NC's Arjun Narsingh KC, UML's Bhim Rawal, NC-D's Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat, Deputy Speaker Chitra Lekha Yadav, civil society leaders Daman Nath Dhungana and Dr. Mathura Shrestha and government secretaries Umesh Mainali, Mohan Banjade and Bal Krishna Dahal, is returning on May 4. When contacted, Sharon Hudson-Dean, Acting Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy, said the embassy has a policy that "we don't talk about individual visa cases". "They have to go through a regular application process - filling up applications and coming up for interviews," she said.