Miscellaneous
EPG report will be implemented at any cost: Foreign Minister Gyawali
Foreign Minister Pradip Gyawali said the differences expressed on the joint report prepared by Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) on Nepal-India relations will have no effect against the desire of nation’s current political leadership to implement it.Foreign Minister Pradip Gyawali said the differences expressed on the joint report prepared by Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) on Nepal-India relations will have no effect against the desire of nation’s current political leadership to implement it.
Speaking to the Post in Indian Capital New Delhi during his visit to the southern neighbor to represent Nepal in the funeral ceremony of former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Gyawali said he was confident the report will be implemented at any cost. “Those who took the decision to set up the EPG are in prime minister’s post. So we are confident on the implementation of the report,” he said.
Gyawali said the understandings and concern over the report by governmental bodies and bureaucracy may be different and they may also have some reservations towards it. But, he said, the biggest thing is the will of the leadership on both sides. He said the current Indian political leadership was committed to take Nepal-India relation to new heights by addressing the thorny issues raised by the Nepali side.
The EPG was tasked with making recommendations on reviewing various treaties and agreements between the two countries including 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
The ninth meeting of the EPG that concluded in Kathmandu on June 30 had prepared a single joint report that will be submitted to the prime ministers of Nepal and India. The two-year tenure of EPG ended on July 4.
The single report was drafted after both sides agreed to replace the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship by a new one, to regulate the Nepal-India border by making people produce identity cards while crossing over to either side, and to jointly tackle common challenges in areas of combating terrorism, extremism, fake-currency and all kinds of trafficking, among other bilateral issues.
The joint EPG report was to be submitted first to Indian PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi and then to PM KP Sharma Oli in Kathmandu but the EPG is yet to submit the report to Modi. The delay in submitting the report to Modi has been blamed to his hectic schedule.