New Delhi: The border row with India can be resolved through diplomacy as no problem is too large if both sides sit across with an “open heart”, Nepal’s foreign minister Shishir Khanal said in New Delhi on Sunday.
He was speaking to reporters just before concluding his official visit to India.
The new government in Kathmandu refuses to view India through the “distorted, hyper-sensitive lens of 21st century geopolitics” and instead wants to build a mutually beneficial relationship for the overall prosperity of both nations, Khanal said.
On Saturday, he held wide-ranging discussions with external affairs minister S Jaishankar. This included talks on the border issue.
The border issue was recently raised by Nepalese prime minister Balendra Shah in the country’s parliament. On May 31, he said that the border dispute with India is “not one-sided”. After taking office, he discovered that Nepal had also encroached on Indian territory in several places, just as India had encroached on Nepal, he had said.
Nepal’s foreign ministry had later clarified that these cross-border encroachments are primarily technical issues related to the vaguely defined “no man’s land” along already demarcated sections of the open border.
Khanal downplayed these remarks and said on Sunday that the priority of the new Nepal government is rapid economic growth, and that they want to upgrade ties with India through that lens, acknowledging at the same time that there are “outstanding issues, including border and boundary”.
“There are active mechanisms that exist between Nepal and India. The field survey team is actually on the border, working together. We agreed during discussions with Jaishankar to activate all these mechanisms to solve border issues,” he said.
No problem is too large and no boundary too complex when we sit down with an open heart, Khanal said, adding, “We look at India with an open heart, clear eyes, and with a single, transparent agenda: the economic transformation of Nepal.”
“Rather than engaging in hyper-nationalistic grandstanding, we are pursuing a calm, data-driven approach to resolve issues,” he remarked.
The Nepalese prime minister had also suggested that the UK should take an interest in and help resolve the longstanding border dispute, as the current territorial boundaries were originally established
during the British era. India’s Ministry of External Affairs had rejected Shah’s call for third-party involvement.
According to the Nepalese foreign minister, Nepal has not sought mediation by any third country to resolve its border dispute with India.
“We need historical evidence, and we simply wanted to explore whether we could gain access to certain documents that may be available in libraries or archives in the UK. However, this does not mean that we have sought mediation. That is not what he [PM Shah] intended to convey,” Khanal said on Sunday.
“If you listened to what he said in Parliament, he stated very clearly and specifically that we want to resolve our border disputes through dialogue and diplomatic channels. This has been Nepal’s longstanding position, and it remains our position today,” he added.
Contrary to reports, Shah would be travelling to India at an opportune time, even as right now, his priority is to spend time in Nepal, Khanal said.
“PM is willing when he is required to travel. As a new government, the PM was keen on showing results on the domestic front. When the appropriate time comes, he will be ready to travel,” he said.
“I represent a completely new political reality in Nepal. Our rise is driven by an extraordinary and historic mandate from our citizens, centred on uncompromising good governance, strict meritocracy, and direct accountability,” the foreign minister underscored.
“We’re not merely neighbours joined by political lines drawn on a map. We are the children of the same rivers, the same mountains, and the same ancient wisdom,” Khanal said when asked about relations with India.
“When we look across the border, we see a rising India. An India that has fundamentally and beautifully redefined itself on the global stage as a dynamic, fast-growing tech and economic powerhouse. We want to engage with this India of intense aspiration, cutting-edge technology, and relentless execution. In turn, we bring the energy of aspiring Nepal,” he added.
Khanal, however, refused to get drawn into any controversy regarding the possibility of a Nepal-like Gen Z protest in India.
“On the Gen Z question, there was a movement back in September, and the political transition that took place definitely has brought us into power. I would not want to comment on what’s happening in India. I’m happier to talk about Nepal and Nepal-India relations,” he said when asked about the protests by the Cockroach Janta Party in New Delhi on Saturday.
On Nepal’s objection to the Kailash-Mansarovar route passing through the Lipulekh Pass, Khanal said: “Our concerns are with the renewal of the agreement between India and China through the Kalapani and Lipulekh area, where we have said for a very long time that the land belongs to us, and without Nepal’s consent, the two countries by themselves cannot make those agreements. And we’ve made that very clearly known through our communication, including diplomatic notes to both countries.”