It has been like a regular part of the political agenda at any high-level political meeting between officials of these two South Asian countries ever since Nepal officially sought a revision of the treaty in 1994. [break]
The treaty featured during the just-concluded "goodwill" visit of Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai as well. Both Nepal and India have agreed to "review, adjust, and update the treaty to reflect current reality" along with agreeing to set up a committee at the level of foreign secretaries to take up the issue.
Similar agreements were reached between the two countries after Nepal´s first communist prime minister, Manmohan Adhikari, officially raised the treaty issue before New Delhi during his visit there in 1994. But such agreements went unimplemented, leaving many to ask how many times the issue will continue to feature in bilateral meetings.
"The political leadership should be clear about the kind of revision in the treaty they want," said an incumbent ambassador who has attended bilateral meetings between Nepal and India in the past. "Unless the political leadership of both countries are clear about the revision, there will be no progress, no matter how many times the two countries agree to review the treaty."
Successive prime ministers after Adhikari continued to raise this issue before New Delhi, arguing that the treaty was "unequal" to Nepal. Then prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had also raised the issue during his India visit in 1996.
Every high-level meeting of officials from the two countries saw the treaty feature in their agendas. Then foreign minister Kamal Thapa was more forceful in seeking revision of the treaty during his meeting with Indian officials in September 2007.
India finally responded to Nepal´s demand for a review of the treaty during the visit of Indian prime minister I. K Gujaral here in 1997. Both Nepal and India had agreed during the Gujaral visit that the treaty should be "reframed to accommodate new realities".
The agreement paved way for the birth of a mechanism at the level of foreign secretaries of both countries in 1999. But the mechanism did nothing except hold a couple of meetings, according to an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).
"The mechanism has not met since 2002," the official said.
Officials of the two countries did not even realize the existence of the mechanism during the India visit of then prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in 2008. In a joint statement, both the prime ministers of Nepal and India agreed to set up a high-level mechanism at the level of foreign secretaries to review, adjust and update the 1950 treaty, which is exactly the provision agreed in the joint statement issued at the end of Bhattarai´s India visit.
"It is surprising why a high-level mechanism was proposed during Dahal´s India visit though a similar mechanism was already in existence for so long," said an informed former Foreign Ministry official.
In 2009 during the India visit of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, both the prime ministers of Nepal and India had directed their foreign secretaries to "discuss and review" the 1950 treaty.
"Not a single meeting between the foreign secretaries has been held to discuss the treaty exclusively since the directive was issued, though the issue has featured during discussions on other bilateral issues," said another informed former MoFA official when asked about implementation of the directive.
Asked about the reason for non-implementation of the agreement, the official said, "Political leaderships were not clear about the kind of revision they have envisioned in regard to the treaty."
Interestingly, the present joint statement relating to revision of the 1950 treaty and setting up of the high-level mechanism is the same as contained in the joint statement issued at the end of Dahal´s India visit.
"It was a deliberate move. We did not want the present joint statement relating to the 1950 treaty to be different from the one in 2008, fearing the controversy that may result from changing even a single word in the text of the 2008 joint statement," said a minister privy to the move.
Eminent Persons Groups also to review treaty
Though the joint statement issued at the end of Bhattarai´s India visit has proposed a mechanism at the level of foreign secretaries of both countries to review the 1950 treaty, government officials said that the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), which has been proposed to look into the totality of Nepal-India relation, will also take up the issue once it comes into existence.
"Our understanding is that the secretary-level mechanism will be responsible for working to review the treaty until the EPG comes in existence. But once the EPG comes into existence, the EPG will also look into the treaty as it is also related to Nepal-India relations," said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayankaji Shrestha.
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