Kathmandu: Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli on Saturday objected to an agreement reached between India and China to use Lipulekh as a trade route during a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin, according to his secretariat.
Nepal claims Lipulekh as its own territory, a claim that India has categorically rejected as “neither justified nor based on historical facts and evidence.”
“Prime Minister Oli, on the occasion, clearly raised his objection to the agreement reached between India and China to use Lipulekh, a Nepalese territory, as a trade route,” the PM’s secretariat said in a statement quoting Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai.
“Nepal believes that China will cooperate with Nepal in this regard,” PM Oli was quoted as saying in the statement.
However, China has not spoken on the issue. An official statement released by the Foreign Ministry of China also did not make any reference to it.
Nepal PM Oli’s secretariat further said that he and Xi Jinping vowed to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation during the bilateral meeting on Saturday.
“They also agreed to move forward with the bilateral mechanism for enhancing bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries,” the statement said.
A press release issued by the Nepal Embassy in China said that Nepal PM Oli expressed “hope on accelerating implementation of projects already agreed, including under the BRI, he requested support in such areas as fertiliser, petroleum, exploration, human resources, development, climate resilience and people-to-people connection”.
