NEWDELHI: Defence Minister Bidhya Bhandari held dialogues with her Indian counterpart AK Antony, Minister of External Affairs, SM Krishna, and Foreign Secretary, Shivshankar Menon, separately on the issues of bilateral concerns here today. She is scheduled to meet opposition leader LK Advani tomorrow.

Minister Bhandari is in New Delhi at the official invitation of Indian defence minister AK Antony. She requested Antony to resume military assistance to Nepal. India had slapped a ban on the supply of lethal arms to Nepal after the royal takeover of 2005.

Antony is learnt to have said that India was committed to assisting Nepal in meeting its military requirement to the fullest possible extent. According to Bhandari, India will provide defence assistance to Nepal as per the recommendation of an existing bilateral defence mechanism.

"If we have not been able to get any military assistance from India post peace deal, it is largely because of our own fault. It is up to us to take the initiative first. Once we do that, India is ready to do all it can to provide military assistance to us," Bhandari told The Himalayan Times.

A bilateral defence mechanism known as Nepal-India Defence Cooperation Committee will hold a meeting within a month to identify Nepal's defence requirement and accordingly apprise the government of India. The mechanism has not held any meeting in last one-and-a-half years.

Bhandari, however, said she did not talk of any specific military requirement. When asked what kind of military assistance Nepal needed at present, she said that the country would need all kinds of weaponry and equipment for the training of police and Nepali Army. Stating that Nepal is entitled to send 5,000 army personnel on peace keeping missions worldwide every year, she said the national army needed all kinds of weapon to support the mission.

"It is up to the government of Nepal to seek both lethal and non-lethal weapons to meet its requirement. The peace deal doesn't bar the supply of any kind of weapon when the country needs them," Bhandari clarified.

Bhandari said she had assured the Indian leaders that the CPN-UML-led coalition was trying to be cohesive and was effortful to bring the UCPN- Maoist in the government under her party's leadership.

"We are committed to peace process but the Maoists, who are an integral part of it, also need to be honest about it," Bhandari told the Indian leaders.

Indian leaders, according to her, wanted to know whether or not Nepali people were being able to live free of all kinds of fear and intimidation. Both the sides also discussed about Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal's upcoming visit to India. The PM is likely to pay an official visit to India in the third week of August.