Nepal and Bhutan are planning to sit down at another attempt at resolving the 10-year-old refugee impasse. The meeting to be held later this month will essentially seek ways to agree on the main sticking point-refugee "verification". Nepal has agreed to the formula suggested by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which suggests taking dependants up to 25 years as members of one family unit for purposes of verification. Bhutan has rebuffed the UNHCR proposal.

Top US diplomats passing by Kathmandu on their way to Bhutan last week said they would be making a new proposal to resolve the verification stalemate. Karl Inderfurth, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and Julia Taft, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, flew to Bhutan on 4 December. Nepali government officials say the US proposal is not very different from the UN formula. Bhutan's ambassador to Nepal Dago Tsering, who was in Kathmandu for another meeting, did not comment on the US proposal on the excuse that he had not read the document.