Nepali PM in India to talk review of friendship treaty
Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal arrived here yesterday to hold talks with Indian leaders on the 58-year-old friendship treaty that Kathmandu says is tilted heavily in favour of New Delhi.
During the five-day visit Nepali PM will put focus on review of the treaty, joint action for flood control and talk on issues like working together in the area of maintenance of barrage and embankment along the common Kosi river in the light of the devastating flood caused by a breach in one of its embankments in Terai region of eastern Nepal and adjacent Indian state of Bihar.
Dahal, better known as Prachanda, and his Maoist party have repeatedly demanded a drastic review or abrogation of the India-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty signed in 1950.
The two sides are also expected to take up the ticklish issue of construction of Saptakoshi and Sunkosi dams on Kosi river in upstream Nepal.
Official sources here said India was not averse to revise the 1950 Friendship Treaty with Nepal in keeping with current realities like New Delhi had done with Thimpu recently.
Ahead of Prachanda's visit to India, his senior party leader CP Gajurel wrote in an article in the government daily "The Rising Nepal" that the main challenge for the present government in Nepal was to review the 1950 friendship treaty as also the 1954 Kosi Barrage Agreement.
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