Nepal for early solution to boundary dispute, India talks development

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 15

Nepal said it discussed the boundary dispute with India at the Foreign Ministers' meeting on Friday under the rubric of the sixth India-Nepal joint commission. The issue found no mention in the Indian read-out of the meeting chaired by Foreign Ministers S Jaishankar and Pradeep Gyawali, respectively.

The Nepalese Foreign office’s assertion did not find a mention in the Indian statement about the joint commission’s proceedings. Rather, it suggested that both sides had kept aside their political differences to focus on bilateral cooperation, including a railway line to Kathmandu, a second oil pipeline, another integrated check-post and funding of two more cultural heritage projects in Nepal.

But the Nepalese Foreign office said not just the boundary issue, but another political matter of revising the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950 was also discussed.

On Thursday, on being asked if the boundary issue would be discussed, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava had said, “Let me say that the Joint Commission meeting and boundary talks are separate mechanisms.”

Later, Nepal Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali publicly underlined both the political issues. “We should sincerely attend to the issues that we have inherited from the past, address them appropriately and creatively work out the agendas for future,” he said, hinting at the unresolved boundary issue. On a review of the treaty, he said the Eminent Persons’ Group had done its work to review the entire spectrum of Nepal-India relations and “it is our job is to receive their report and implement it”.

Both sides discussed connectivity, economy and trade, power, oil and gas, water resources, and political and security issues.

Revising peace and Friendship treaty

The Nepalese Foreign office said not just the boundary issue, but another political matter of revising the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950 was also discussed at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting.

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