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AMN / WEB DESK
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is all set to make his first foreign trip to India. According to Nepalese media Government officials have started preparations for PM Dahal’s visit to India in the near future.
Prime minister while speaking with some editors and journalists at Baluwatar on Saturday said that he would make New Delhi his first port of call after taking up the executive job in December-end.
Dahal said the Nepali Embassy in New Delhi was coordinating with relevant offices and officials in New Delhi on the visit.
In 2008, after being elected prime minister for the first time, Dahal went off the beaten track to visit Beijing for the Olympics inaugural ceremony without first travelling to India, as Nepali prime ministers have traditionally done. Dahal later tried to control the damage and upon his return from Beijing, said his first ‘official’ visit would still be to New Delhi.
Having thus caused deep suspicions in the officialdom in New Delhi, Dahal, in his second stint as prime minister, first went to India on a state visit in September, 2016.
In July last year, Dahal visited India at the invitation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president JP Nadda. Dahal had at the time met External Affairs Minister of India S Jaishankar, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and the BJP president.
Foreign ministry sources said that ahead of the prime minister’s visit, various meetings of various bilateral mechanisms are planned.