 |
|
| Kathmandu, Saturday January 11, 2003 Paush 27, 2059. |
|
Nepal-India ties need to be
nurtured: Saran
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 10:Bilateral relations between Nepal and India
should be nurtured instead of taking it for granted, India’s Ambassador to Nepal,
Shyam Saran said on Friday.
"We must never assume that because we
have this shared history of political, commercial, cultural and religious interactions,
good relations will follow in the natural course of things," said Ambassador Saran at
a talk programme on Nepal-India relations organised here today by Nepal Council of World
Affairs. He warned that such complacency might lead the neighbours to ignore or minimise
the consequences of divergent perceptions and differences of opinion.
The envoy called for in-built early warning
mechanism in the management of bilateral relations, so as to deal with the differences as
they rise. In this regard, Saran suggested interaction at various levels, instead of
merely limiting it to government-level contacts.
The Indian ambassador pointed out various
fields in which the two South Asian neighbours could co-operate for mutual benefit. He
cited Nepal’s water resources potential could be operationalised, so that the kingdom
could earn revenues by meeting the growing needs of power by his country. "Joint
projects could address the problems of flooding or drought and bring irrigation to
agricultural lands on both sides of the border," he added.
Listing other areas for co-operation, the
ambassador suggested Nepal to lure Indian tourists to Nepal, tap Indian markets, work
towards increasing Indian investment, take advantage of India’s progress in IT
industry and other areas of high technology.
He admitted that there was not much progress
on trade and business ties, laying the blame on negative perception of security in Nepal
and called for its removal. However, he expressed the hope that it was a "temporary
phenomenon".
Speaking about the long open border, he said
it was an asset, "despite calls heard on both sides of the border". He ruled out
the possibility of sealing the border in any effective manner but he said monitoring of
the border should continue.
Answering a question on the need for
regulating the border to control not only "terrorists" but also contain
smuggling, the ambassador pointed out that once Nepal and India moved towards WTO
standards on tariff and duties on goods, smuggling would lessen, since there would not be
much differences on the price of goods on either side.
He termed Maoist insurgency as a threat to
India too and called for sharing of intelligence on movements across the border. He also
suggested tackling insurgency in a two-fold manner: addressing socio-economic causes that
helped flourish insurgency and dealing it militarily. He offered India’s assistance
on both the aspects, saying India has been doing that.
Saran also reiterated the current Indian
position of not interfering on the Bhutanese refugee impasse, that has proved to be a
thorn in the bilateral relations of Nepal and Bhutan, insisting the two countries were
capable of resolving the problem.
However, he also hinted at India’s role
to resolve the issue. "If India has to come in, India will come in, only as a friend
of both Nepal and Bhutan," said Saran.
Other Stories
|
