India External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday morning leading an Indian delegation to the seventh meeting of the Nepal-India joint commission.

Jaishankar was received by his Nepali counterpart NP Saud upon his arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport among other senior officials of the government as well as the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu.

The minister arrived on a short trip to Kathmandu leading the Indian delegation to the highest level bilateral mechanism between Nepal and India entrusted to review the entire status of bilateral ties.

Before co-chairing the meeting, he will call on President Ramchandra Paudel and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and discuss issues of mutual interest.

At the meeting, the two sides are planning to ink two agreements, and the pair of foreign ministers will jointly inaugurate three cross-border transmission lines spanning Nepal and India.

The Indian side has already asked Nepal not to bring up some controversial issues during discussions.

In a recent meeting with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Foreign Minister Saud said that India is unwilling to discuss disputed issues like the report of the Eminent Persons' Group, the boundary dispute involving Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, and the 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty.

“We cannot drop our prime concerns even if there can be no agreements in this meeting. We should bring them to the table,” a minister said, describing the mood of the discussion between the prime minister and Saud, adding, “We will table them, but there might be no understanding on these issues.”

Even the prime minister has said that he will speak with the Indian ambassador, if needed, to continue discussions on these issues, which he had also discussed with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his India visit last year.

The issue of replacing the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Nepal and India has for long been a bone of contention. To chart out a new framework for Nepal-India relations, including recommendations on what to do with the treaty, the two countries had formed an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG), which has already submitted its report in 2018.

Another unresolved issue pertains to boundary matters. There is now a ‘cartographic war’ following the publications of new maps by India and then Nepal, with each side’s map incorporating disputed territories including Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. These areas have been under Indian control for several decades.

The Indian minister will return home on Friday.