Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli on Wednesday proposed a solution to the ongoing border tension saying that Nepal can allow India to use the link road to the Lipulekh Pass as part of an agreement, but will not surrender the Kalapani territory on which India has been carrying out construction.
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Addressing an all-party meeting in Kathmandu, Prime Minister Oli said that he was against India’s unilateral actions in the region but agreed that a solution can be found that will preserve Nepal’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. His observations came on a day when Nepal deployed a contingent of soldiers in the westernmost part of the country near its border with India.
“The government will save the land that was added to Nepal by our ancestors. PM urged the leaders not to make their positions based on things that have come from outside,” Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali was quoted as saying in online publication Setopati.
‘Diplomatic solution’
Wednesday’s meetings were attended by a large number of political parties, and also several former Prime Ministers. Mr. Gyawali said that the leaders sought a diplomatic solution to the crisis that involves the territory of Kalapani that India depicts as a part of the easternmost region of the State of Uttarakhand. A similar meeting was also held earlier after India depicted the contested region as its territory in a new set of political maps published in November 2019.
Nepal expressed regret after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the link road that will cut travelling time to the Tibetan plateau and the Kailash Mansarovar. Kathmandu maintains that the territories to the east of Mahakali river are a part of its domain, as agreed in the Treaty of Sugauli of 1816 between the East India Company and the King of Nepal.
