KATHMANDU, April 28: A four-day meeting of Nepal-India Bilateral Consultative Group on Security Issues concluded with both sides agreeing to increase intelligence sharing to curb cross-border crimes along the porous Nepal-India border.
The joint-secretary level meeting held at the tourist city of Pokhara also agreed to an increased cooperation between India and Nepal for military trainings and disaster response in the event of natural calamities such as floods and earthquake.
Joint Secretary (North) at the External Affairs Ministry (MEA) of India Akhilesh Mishra led the Indian delegation while Nepali delegation was led by Joint Secretary at Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) Dipak Dhital. The delegations from both the sides comprised of representatives from ministry of home, defense and various security agencies.
According an official who was a part of the Nepali delegation, the two sides have agreed to increase coordination between local level mechanism including regular meetings between the chief district officers of Nepal and district magistrates of India of the districts along the Nepal-India border and share intelligence information on real time basis to help effectively curb cross border crime.
The agreement comes in the wake of chief ministers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh complaining during Chief Minister´s Conference held recently in New Delhi that open border with Nepal poses security challenges to their states. They even sought center´s support to regulate the border to check cross border crimes.
The issue of resuming lethal arms supply to the NA, however, did not feature during the talks. India stopped supplying lethal weapons after the royal takeover in February, 2005.
During the meeting, Nepali side offered to provide peace keeping training to Indian Army personnel at its Birendra Peace Operation Training Center in Panchkhal. Military personnel from various countries take peace keeping training at the center.
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