Sushma Swaraj arrives today
KATHMANDU, JUL 25 - External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Sawraj arrives in Kathmandu on Friday evening on a three-day official visit and to co-chair the third meeting of the Nepal-India Joint Commission.
Swaraj is the first high-level foreign official to visit Nepal after the second Constituent Assembly elections held in November last year.
Her visit will help improve bilateral understanding at the political level and strengthen mutual trust, said Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey.
Besides reviewing the status of bilateral projects, the joint commission will activate some three dozen mechanisms that exist between the two countries.
The meeting, being held after a gap of 23 years, will review bilateral relations in their entirety. An apex mechanism, the joint commission is mandated to review, assess and evaluate past agreements, project performance and the jobs carried out by the 32 mechanisms established at various levels between the two countries.
The meeting is expected to seek a way to streamline the channels and provide an impetus to bilateral ties.
Swaraj has no official engagement for the day after landing in Kathmandu on Friday evening. Besides co-chairing the joint committee meeting with her Nepali counterpart Pandey, the Indian minister will call on President Ram Baran Yadav and Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and meet political leaders.
After worshipping at Pashupatinath Temple on Sunday morning, she will leave for New Delhi on a chartered flight. She will be accompanied by Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh and officials from the ministries of Power, Water Resources, Commerce, Road Transport, Railways, Human Resource Development, Culture, and External Affairs and the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Each side will have a 27-member delegation to the forum.
According to Nepal’s Foreign Ministry, the meeting will discuss five core areas of cooperation between the neighbours—political, security, border and border management; economic cooperation and infrastructure; trade and transit; energy and water resource; and culture, education and media.
A joint communiqué will be issued at the end of the meeting. Several rounds of meeting at the Foreign Ministry with line ministries, political leaders and experts have provided inputs for the joint meeting.
Prime Minister Koirala has called a three-party meeting for Friday morning to discuss the agenda of the visit with Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and UCPN-Maoist leaders. A Cabinet meeting on Friday will endorse the agenda for the joint commission.
In a Nepali Congress office bearers’ meeting on Thursday, Minister for Information and Communications Minendra Rijal briefed the agenda of the meeting.
Loaded Agenda on the table
- Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950
- Projects funded under EXIM Bank
- Completion of the eastern part of Mid Hills Highway to Chyo, Sikkim
- Hulaki Road (I and II)
- Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track
- Two railways (Simara-Birgunj and Dhalkebar-Bardibas)
- Chure conservation
- Nepal Police Academy
- Polytechnic Institute in Hetauda
- Trauma Centre in Bir Hospital
- PDA of Upper Karnali and Arun III
- 2,700 shallow tube wells
- Cricket Academy
- Cooperation agreement on culture and media
- Rehabilitation for Gandak and Koshi canals
- ToR finalisation for Pancheshwor Authority
- Letters of Exchange on trade facilitation
- Use of Vishakapattam Port
- Mahendranagar-Tanakpur link road
- Inundation and flood control
- Electricity import from India
- Additional transit routes
- Setting up Boundary Working Group
- More Indian scholarships for Nepali students
- Security cooperation including Extradition Treaty and MLA
- Two bridges over Mahakali River
- Trade facilitation and ICP
- Development cooperation and small development projects
- Power and energy cooperation agreement
- Implementation of BIPPA
- Curbing cross-border criminal elements
Source: The Kathmandu Post
