Miscellaneous
Nepal, India set date for two crucial meets
Nepal and India are preparing to hold two crucial meetings to implement the agreements signed between the two countries during Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s visit to India last week.Kamal Dev Bhattarai
Nepal and India are preparing to hold two crucial meetings to implement the agreements signed between the two countries during Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s visit to India last week.
According to sources, the fourth Nepal-India Joint Commission (JC) meeting will take place at the end of October.
Based on the understanding between Minister for Foreign Affairs Prakash Sharan Mahat and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj, the meeting will dwell on a wide range of disputed bilateral issues.
Earlier, Mahat had told the Post that there had been an understanding to build an environment of trust at the political level and resolve the technical issues related to big pending matters and other bilateral issues through the commission.
According to the sources, the meeting will dwell upon preparing a time-bound plan to complete the pending projects.
Both Dahal and Modi had agreed to expedite the pending projects through a bilateral monitoring mechanism.
Earlier, the JC meeting was scheduled for August 20-22 in New Delhi, but it was cancelled after a change of guard in Kathmandu. The third JC meeting was held in Kathmandu in 2014 after a hiatus of 23 years.
The JC is a high-level mechanism that comprehensively aims to review Nepal-India relations in the areas of political and security issues, trade and investment cooperation, water resources and power, connectivity, development assistance and education and culture.
The second meeting of the Nepal-India Eminent Persons Group (EPG) is taking
place in New Delhi on October 4-5. The first meeting of the EPG was organised in Kathmandu in July. It was more of a preparatory meeting.
The upcoming meeting is expected to enter into the key issues of reviewing the bilateral treaties and conventions including the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950.
“We expect a concrete proposal from the Nepali side regarding the 1950 treaty. We are ready to discuss any proposal,” said Bhagat Singh Koshyari, an EPG member from India and a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The treaty did not figure in the joint statement issued during PM Dahal’s India visit saying that the EPG “is working on it”.
Indian prez visits after Tihar: Rae
KASKI: Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae has said Indian President Pranab Mukherjee will visit Nepal after Tihar, which ends on November 1 this year. Laying the foundation stone for a building of the Gupteshwor Multiple Campus in Pokhara on Thursday, Rae said the date of Mukherjee’s visit would be decided soon. He remarked the recent India visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and two other ministers had strengthened ties between Nepal and India. (PR)