If Nepal
wants to seek a lasting and amicable solution to the boundary row in the
Kalapani region, Kathmandu needs to hold talks not only with New
Delhi but also with Beijing,
some experts and diplomats say.
The row over kalapani between Nepal
and India
has escalated once again following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent
statement on Lipulekh.
Addressing an election rally in Haldwani of Uttarakhand on
December 30, Modi said that his government has extended a road to Lipulekh and
further expansion work is going on.
The remarks created uproar in Nepal.
Political parties, from the main opposition to ruling coalition
partners to Deuba’s own Nepali Congress, demanded that the government respond
to Modi’s statement and issue a protest note against India.
On Saturday, the Indian embassy in Kathmandu said in a
statement that India’s
position on the India-Nepal boundary “is well known, consistent and
unambiguous”.
“It has been communicated to the government of Nepal,” the
embassy said.
A day later, Nepal
on Sunday said that Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura are “integral parts of Nepal”.
According to experts, Nepal needs to take a different
approach when it comes to the Kalapani region. If Kathmandu wants to resolve
the outstanding boundary row surrounding Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura,
it should initiate talks not just with India
but also with China,
according to them.
“There is a need to bring both Delhi
and Beijing
together for talks. The region belongs to Nepal, but it’s a trijunction,”
said Dinesh Bhattarai, a former ambassador who served as foreign relations
advisor to prime ministers Sushil Koirala and Deuba in the past.
The Kalapani region has been occupied by India for the last six decades, even though Nepal has been
claiming it as its own.
Lipulekh, however, came into focus in May 2015 when India and China agreed to develop a transit
and trade point via the region.
One of the points of the joint communique issued on May 15, 2015
in Beijing mentioned that "the two sides recognised that enhancing border
areas cooperation through border trade, pilgrimage by people of the two
countries and other exchanges can effectively promote mutual trust, and agreed
to further broaden this cooperation so as to transform the border into a bridge
of cooperation and exchanges".
The then government led by Koirala had sent diplomatic notes to
Indian Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping and protested
against the agreement, saying that since “Lipulekh belongs to Nepal, such
unilateral decision has only violated the territorial integrity of Nepal.”
Now that India
has unilaterally built the road via Lipulekh, there is a need to draw Beijing's attention to
the development, observers say.
Bhattarai who was adviser to Koirala at that time was the
witness to the letter sent to both India
and China.
“It was China
that dragged India up to
Lipulekh so it cannot remain silent because as per the boundary agreement
between Nepal and China of
October 1961, we had failed to fix the location of pillar No zero,” said
Bhattarai. “So both India
and China
must be brought on board and the government, accordingly, should initiate
talks.”
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), which was in 2015
known as the UCPN (Maoist), too had written separate letters to Modi, Xi and Nepal’s then prime minister Sushil Koirala had
drawn their attention to the agreement signed between India and China.
The incumbent Deuba government has been embroiled in a
unique scenario where it is facing criticism for failing to speak up on the
boundary row with the southern neighbour while it is being called out for
raising border dispute with the northern neighbour.
In September, the government had formed a team to study the
boundary issues along the Nepal-China border from Limi Lapsa to Hilsa of Humla.
China, which has all along
maintained that it does not have any boundary disputes with Nepal, has refused to accept that there is any
territorial dispute in the Kalapani area between Nepal,
India and China.
Just as questions were being raised against the Deuba government
for not issuing a protest note to India
against Modi’s statement, the Chinese embassy on January 13 put out a statement
to reiterate that that “China
and Nepal
have resolved the boundary issue through friendly consultations as early as the
1960s, and there is no dispute at all.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal has issued a statement
to clarify it and the Nepali government has also dispatched a team to conduct
on-spot investigations,” said the Chinese embassy. “The foreign authorities of
the two countries maintain good communication on border-related affairs. It is
hoped the Nepali people will not be misled by individual false reports,” added
the embassy in the statement without providing details as to which boundary
issue it was talking about.
The Nepali side has come up with a report that there are issues on
the Nepal-China border in Humla district. Similarly, Nepal
and China
have yet to resolve the dispute over pillar N0 57 in Dolakha. Pillar No 1 in
the far-west and pillar No 99 in Taplejung have yet to be erected ownting to
the disputes. One major dispute between Nepal
and China
earlier was two different heights of Mt Everest, which was resolved amicably in
2020.
A senior official at the Department of Survey told the Post that
the office has sent three requests and communications, through the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, to China
in the last two and a half years for a joint inspection of the border.
“Sometime before the joint announcement of the height of Mt
Everest, we had sent one request. When the height of Everest was announced
jointly in December 2020, we sent a request again,” said the official.
“Recently, after the boundary issue resurfaced in Humla district, we again sent
a request for talks as well as joint inspection of the boundary. But we have
yet to get a response from the Chinese side.”
An official at the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu,
however, told the Post that they have not received any formal proposal from the
Nepali side to hold boundary meetings. “China
is willing to keep communications with Nepal on boundary issues through
the established boundary management and cooperation channels,” said the
official.
As per the, boundary protocol between nepal and china, both sides will
conduct and complete the joint boundary inspection every 10 years in order to
update the boundary protocols. But officials said that Nepal and China have not signed such a
protocol since 1998 and have not conducted joint inspections since 2006.
“It is really essential for us to talk with China in order
to resolve the dispute in the Kalapani area,” said Madhusudan Adhikari, former
director general at the Department of Survey. “Without talking with China, the
boundary row around Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura cannot be resolved.”
According to Adhikari, the Indian side had made some
communications with the Chinese side regarding identifying the trijunction as
per his conversation with Indian officials. “The Indian officials told us that
the Chinese side did not respond to the Indian queries on their position about
the trijunction around Lipulekh area since pillar No zero of Nepal and China border falls in that region,”
said Adhikari.
“We have to raise the issue of the trilateral boundary point
both with India and China.
Otherwise, the boundary row surrounding the Kalapani area will continue to
linger,” added Adhikari, who later retired as a government secretary.
Some diplomats say since the Koirala government had sent two
separate letters to India
and China
protesting their decision to develop a trade and transit route via Lipulekh,
the Deuba government should take a similar initiative for resolving the
outstanding boundary issue, once and for all.
“Currently there is a Nepali Congress-led government in Nepal again,”
said Pradhumna Bikram Shah, former ambassador and chairman of the Association
of the Career Ambassadors Nepal. “It must make a prudent move and should
consider sending notes both to India
and China
as the continuation of the notes dispatched by the then Koirala government in
2015.”
According to Shah, Nepal should call for a trilateral meeting
between Kathamndu, Delhi and Beijing.
Nepal and India have completed strip maps covering 98
percent of the Nepal-India boundary, but Kathmandu
has refused to sign, saying the boundary disputes in Susta in Nawalparasi and
Kalapani in Darchula remain unresolved.
Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, an acclaimed cartographer and former
director general of the Department of Survey, said that Beijing
should also speak on whether the trijunction between Nepal,
India and China lies in
the Kalapani region since the three nations share the border in the area
“China cannot
escape from its responsibility and should assist Nepal
as well as India
to find out the trijunction so that we can resolve the dispute amicably,”
Shrestha told the Post. “When Nepal
and China settled the
boundary dispute in 1961, India
paid no attention as it was on the verge of war with China. And China did not remember Nepal in 2015 when it signed an agreement with India to open a
trading point via Lipulekh.”
According to Shrestha, both India
and China ignored Nepal’s calls
in the past.
“Now time has come for Nepal
to initiate talks,” said Shrestha, “both with India
and China
so as to settle the dispute, which has been on the table for long, for good.”
Anil Giri
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