Foreign Secy Shivshankar Menon on Nepal visit from Saturday

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon will arrive in Kathmandu on a two-day official visit to impress upon the Nepalese leadership the need to take the peace process forward and discuss the agenda for the maiden India tour by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon will arrive in Kathmandu on Saturday on a two-day official visit to impress upon the Nepalese leadership the need to take the peace process forward and discuss the agenda for the maiden India tour by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

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Menon, who would arrive here on a special aircraft, will meet President Ram Baran Yadav, Vice President Parmananda Jha, the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala and Home Minister Bhim Bahadur Rawal.

He would also hold bilateral talks with his Nepalese counterpart Gyanchandra Acharya on Saturday.

Acharya said that the major agenda of the visit will be preparation for the upcoming visit of Madhav Nepal to India. "I hope that the date for the Prime Minister's visit to India will be fixed during Menon's two-day visit," he told PTI.

"We are working out details of the visit of the Prime Minister," the Nepal Foreign Secretary said. Nepal will tour India probably before his visit to the NAM Summit next month.

The entire gamut of Nepal–India relations including power, trade, as also the recent border dispute will be discussed, he said. The meeting will also focus on preparation for the next SAARC summit to be held in Bhutan on April 2010.

It is expected that the top Indian diplomat will convey to the Nepalese leadership India's concerns over the delay in constituting the full cabinet and the need to take the peace process to a logical conclusion.