Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Mukund Narwane is on a visit to Nepal this week amidst a continuing conflict between India and Nepal. Narwane will be awarded an honorary rank of General rank during this journey. The Army Chief will meet Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on 5 November. Experts believe that after this meeting which is being described as very important, there can be a foreign secretary-level dialogue between the two countries.
India stopped talks with Nepal earlier this year. Nepal released a new map in June this year showing many parts of India as part of Nepal. It was being told that China’s support was behind this move to incite extreme nationalist sentiments in Nepal. In the past few months, the two neighbors have softened their posture and attempted to improve relations again. In September, PM Oli decided to stop the distribution of the next school text books to be published with a revised political map of the country. Was
A top government official said, “If the talks are as expected, the India Foreign Secretary level talks and the Joint Technical Level Boundary Committee meeting can be resumed.”
General Narwane’s visit to Nepal comes at a time when PM Oli is still in the midst of a fierce power struggle within the Nepal Communist Party. The Communist Party was formed in 2018 after the merger of Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Center.
