Ready to resolve border issues with India through diplomatic talks, evidence: Nepal

Kathmandu, July 1: Nepal is always ready to resolve the border issues with India through diplomatic dialogue on the basis of the historical agreement and map, Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said here on Wednesday.
Responding to questions raised by lawmakers in the Upper House (National Assembly), Khanal also said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already made public its detailed views in connection with comments by Prime Minister Balendra Shah during his address in the Parliament in May.
The Nepal government is always ready to resolve the border issue (with India) through diplomatic dialogue on the basis of the historical agreement and map abiding by the spirit and sentiments of close relations existing between Nepal and India, Khanal said.
Prime Minister Shah’s statement on May 31 that Nepal also encroached Indian territories at different places and that the Himalayan nation has involved China and the UK to resolve the issue had sparked controversy.
New Delhi categorically rejected any role for third parties to resolve the row. The statement also invited criticism from Nepal’s opposition parties.
Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later clarified the matter in a statement that the prime minister was speaking about cross-border occupation by people from both sides of the border.
On Wednesday, regarding the border issue of Susta, Khanal said, “Mechanisms have already been set up and actively working at various border areas of Nepal and India.” “Any work being carried out in and around the intentional border is being done through coordination between the two sides,” he clarified.
“So far as the construction of 132 metre embankment in the Susta area (in southern Nepal) is concerned, the works have moved forward only after forging coordination between the officials of the two countries,” Khanal pointed out. (PTI)