India’s stance on Nepal boundary well known, consistent & unambiguous: Embassy

The Indian Embassy on Saturday said that Indias position on its boundary with Nepal is well known, consistent and unambiguous amidst discontent within the Opposition parties over reports claiming that the Indian government is undertaking construction activities in areas that Nepal has included in its map.The statement of the Indian Embassy here came days after Nepals main Opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist CPN-UML urged Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to speak up on the boundary issue and make its position clear on Lipulekh.The UML unwaveringly believes that construction of roads and other structures should be stopped.


PTI | Kathmandu | Updated: 15-01-2022 20:02 IST | Created: 15-01-2022 19:52 IST
India’s stance on Nepal boundary well known, consistent & unambiguous: Embassy
Representative image Image Credit: ANI
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The Indian Embassy on Saturday said that India’s position on its boundary with Nepal is well known, consistent and unambiguous amidst discontent within the Opposition parties over reports claiming that the Indian government is undertaking construction activities in areas that Nepal has included in its map.

The statement of the Indian Embassy here came days after Nepal’s main Opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) urged Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to speak up on the boundary issue and make its position clear on Lipulekh.

“The UML unwaveringly believes that construction of roads and other structures should be stopped. The issue should be promptly resolved through dialogue and no structure should be built at the state level until resolution is reached through dialogue,” read the statement issued by Rajan Bhattarai, the UML’s foreign department head.

In response to media queries over the recent reports and statements in Nepal on the question of the India-Nepal boundary, the spokesperson of the Indian Embassy said: “The Government of India’s position on the India-Nepal boundary is well known, consistent and unambiguous. It has been communicated to the Government of Nepal”.

“It is our view that the established inter-governmental mechanisms and channels are most appropriate for communication and dialogue.

“Mutually agreed boundary issues that are outstanding can always be addressed in the spirit of our close and friendly bilateral relations,” it said.

In November last year, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand that there was an attempt to create misapprehensions in Nepal about a road from Lipulekh Pass to Mansarovar through Dharchula that was inaugurated by him recently.

Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt also claimed that pilgrims will soon be able to visit Kailash-Mansarovar by car as Rs 60 crore has been sanctioned by the Centre to upgrade the border road from Ghatiabagar to Lipulekh into a metalled one.

Singh last month reiterated that the route to Mansarovar via Lipulekh pass has been cleared.

The Lipulekh pass is a far western point near Kalapani, a border area between Nepal and India. Both India and Nepal claim Kalapani as an integral part of their territory -- India as part of Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district and Nepal as part of Dharchula district.

The bilateral ties came under strain under then prime minister K P Sharma Oli after India opened an 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8, 2020.

Nepal first protested the inauguration of the road claiming that it passed through its territory, and days later, it came out with a new map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as its territories. India reacted sharply to the move.

However, in June 2020, Nepal's Parliament approved the new political map of the country featuring areas which India maintains belong to it.

After Nepal released the map, India criticised the move, calling it a ''unilateral act'' and cautioning Kathmandu that such ''artificial enlargement'' of territorial claims will not be acceptable to it.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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