Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi are scheduled to hold a meeting on Friday, according to sources in Kathmandu and New Delhi.

Oli arrived in the Indian capital on Thursday to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Modi, who started his second term as India’s prime minister after his party’s landslide win in the recently concluded general elections.

Though there is no specific agenda, the sources told the Post, the meeting is expected to revolve around holding the fifth meeting of the Joint Commission at the foreign minister level in Kathmandu.

“It will be basically a courtesy meeting between the two prime ministers,” Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali told the Post. “The talks will centre around expediting the past understandings reached between the two countries during the five back-to-back visits undertaken by the two prime ministers in the past five years.”

Asked about the joint commission meeting, Gyawali said that since a new Cabinet is just taking shape in India, it will be too early to say anything at this moment. “But what we can understand is that both prime ministers may reach an understanding on the holding of the joint commission meeting at the foreign minister level,” said Gyawali.

“We also hope that Modi will continue with the same foreign policy and understanding he had during his first stint when it comes to Nepal.”

If there is an understanding on convening the fifth joint commission, the new Indian foreign minister could visit Nepal at the earliest, said officials.

The fourth meeting of the joint commission was held in New Delhi in October 2016.  

The fifth meeting was expected to take place in February but it was postponed due to the elections in India.

The joint commission meeting, the highest political mechanism between the two countries, can provide fresh inputs and directives in bilateral ties, especially in the backdrop of India’s reluctance to receive the Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) report on Nepal-India relations, among others.

In continuation of its “neighbourhood first” and “act east” policies, India invited leaders from BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, for Modi’s swearing-in.

This is Oli’s second visit to India after assuming office last year.

Modi, during his first stint, made four visits to Nepal—two bilateral and two multilateral—for the 18th SAARC Summit and the fourth BIMSTEC Summit.

Modi’s first visit to Nepal in 2014, the first by an Indian prime minister in 17 years, was well received. But a year later, relations soured after India imposed a border blockade following the promulgation of the constitution in Nepal.

Relations between the two countries, however, gradually return to normalcy with more high-level exchanges.

After Oli won the 2017 elections, then Indian minister for external affairs Sushma Swaraj landed in Kathmandu to congratulate him long before he was sworn in as the prime minister, in a move that was largely seen as an olive branch from Modi.