Kathmandu, February 22

The seventh meeting of the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations is being held here on Saturday and Sunday.

According to Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, who coordinates the Eminent Persons Group from the Nepali side, the upcoming meeting is a continuity of the dialogue between the two sides, where deliberations will be held on bilateral issues related to the 1950 treaty, trade and transit, water resources and border disputes, among others.

“There are basically no new agenda. This meeting will deliberate on the same regular issues related to Nepal-India relations,” he said.

The sixth Eminent Persons Group meeting held in New Delhi on January 12 had agreed on the format of the joint report to be submitted to the two governments after the talks conclude in July this year.

The Eminent Persons Group’s tenure ends in July and it has to hold one more meeting after the Kathmandu meet. Its meetings are held alternatively in Nepal and India.

Nepali EPG members include Thapa, former chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Surya Nath Upadhyay, former law minister Nilambar Acharya and CPN-UML leader Rajan Bhattarai.

The Indian EPG members are former Indian ambassador Jayant Prasad, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Bhagat Singh Koshyari, former vice-chancellor of Sikkim University Mahendra Lama and VIF senior fellow BC Upreti.