The two neighboring countries had reached the understanding during a bilateral meeting held between Indian Foreign Secretary Dr Subramanyam Jaishankar and his Nepali counterpart Shanker Das Bairagi at Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on Thursday. ""The meeting dwelt on reviewing the entire gamut of bilateral relations between Nepal and India. We have reached an understanding to expedite implementation of various agreements reached between the two countries by making a time-bound implementation pl"n," Bairagi told Republica.
Foreign Secretary Jaishankar, who arrived in Kathmandu on a two-day official visit to Nepal as a part of his SAARC Yatra on Thursday, held a meeting with Foreign Secretary Bairagi to review the progress achieved in Nepal-India bilateral cooperation following the historic visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal last year.
The two sides appreciated the progress on major issues of bilateral interests and stressed the need to expedite implementation of projects under bilateral cooperation and partnership agreement.
The visit of Jaishankar comes after the visit of Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in July and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August and later again in November last year to attend the 18th SAARC Summit. While conveying that India attaches high priority to Nepal as a part of h"r "neighborhood fi"st" policy, he told Nepali political leadership that India stands ready to support Nepal in its endeavors to achieve peace, stability and prosperity.
Foreign Secretary Jaishankar, who is accompanied by Joint Secretary (North) at Ministry of External Affairs, India, Abhay Thakur, paid courtesy call on Chairman of Constituent Assembly Subas Nembang and Foreign Minister Mahendra Pandey. While he talked about different aspects of bilateral relations and sought Nepal's support to India's bid for permanent membership of UN Security Council with Pandey, Jaishankar had inquired about the ongoing constitution drafting process and the course ahead with Nembang.
Also, he held separate meetings with top leaders of UCPN (Maoist), including Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the latter's residence in Lazimapat Thursday evening. While urging Maoist to take special initiatives to promulgate new statute in consensus, he had conveyed India's desire to see early promulgation of new statute for peace, prosperity and stability in Nepal.
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