Kathmandu, December 8

Spokesperson of Indian Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup today said that he was fully confident that the financial authorities of India and Nepal would find a way to resolve problems caused by demonetisation of Indian currency notes of 500 and 1,000.

He said this at a weekly press briefing in New Delhi today in response to a journalist’s query.

Indian currency notes of 500 and 1,000 were accepted as legal tender in Nepal until the Indian government demonetized them on November 8.

Nepal’s central bank decided to allow these high currency notes to be accepted as legal tender on February 24 last year.

According to details of the audio briefing posted on MEA website, Swarup said Indian financial authorities were in talks with the financial authorities of Nepal and Bhutan where Indian currency is accepted as legal tender and the reserve (central) banks of these countries were also communicating to resolve the problems.

On the question of uncertainty over SAARC Summit, Swarup said the situation remains the same. “If you read the letters (letters written to SAARC Chair by its members seeking postponement of SAARC Summit) what do those letters say?

That the present environment for holding the SAARC Summit is not conducive in which one particular country is promoting cross border terrorism. One particular country is blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

It is for you do judge. Has cross border terrorism stopped? Has one country’s blatant interference in the matters of other countries stopped? If it has not, then the condition for holding the summit remains the same, in which case the summit will not happen,” Swarup said.

He said the ball was in Pakistan’s court.

“So the choice is Pakistan’s. Pakistan has to say that okay we have decided not hold the Summit. We want to give it to whichever country wants to hold it.

Then things can move forward. Pakistan was to hold the SAARC Summit in November, but in the face of terrorist attack on Uri Army base in India, other SAARC members, first India and later other members, pulled out of the summit in September.