The first ever joint meeting of Nepal-India Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG), a bilateral committee formed to review the agreements and treaties between the two countries including Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950, is taking place in Kathmandu in the last week of June.

After a prolonged deliberations regarding meeting, the dates have been finally fixed for June 30 and July 1 with the consensus of both sides.

Both Nepal and India have formed their respective teams and finalised the secretariats and focal persons.  Respective teams of both countries have already begun their internal works of reviewing the past conventions and treaties. Earlier, the meeting was delayed due to lack of technical preparations from Indian side mainly about its secretariat.

The meeting is taking place at a time when Nepal-India relation is souring due to the sudden cancellation of President Bidhya Devi Bhandari's scheduled visit to India on first week of this month.

The joint meeting will help in rebuilding the trust between two sides, said officials.

The team is responsible to review all the bilateral agreement and to make specific suggestions to both countries. Nepal is consistently pushing to review the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950 saying that it is ‘unequal.’ India is asking Nepal to come up with concrete proposal regarding the amendment.

 A member of EPG of Nepal said they want to come out of the framework of Nepal-India relationship that was adopted in the last five decades. “In the changed context of Nepal, we want to build relation with India in a new way,” said the member. 

Some observers in India, however, questioned the relevance of such group. They are of the view that it is merely a strategy to postpone the problem instead of resolving them. They are of the view that Nepal-India should hold direct talks on the bilateral treaties.

The decision of forming such group was made during former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s India visit in 2011. During Sushil Koirala’s tenure in 2014, the Terms of Reference (ToR) of EPG was finalised.  KP Oli –led government formed the EPG which was subsequently followed by Indian government.