Kathmandu:
Hours before issuing a diplomatic statement on India-China border dispute, Nepal on Saturday changed its citizenship laws for Indians. While confirming the news, Nepal’s Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa went on to cite India’s citizenship rules to justify the amendments the Nepalese govt has brought.
Thapa announced that as per the new rule, any Indian girl marrying a Nepalese citizen will have to wait for a minimum seven years to get citizenship.
He went on to cite India’s laws which allow for citizenship to be granted to a foreign national only after he/she has been married to an Indian citizen for over seven years.
Nepal’s Home Minister, however, did not mention the fact in his statement that this clause of India’s citizenship law does not apply to Nepalese nationals.
The development has come in the wake of strained ties between India and Nepal over the attack on Indian nationals by Nepalese security forces. According to reports, one Indian was killed and three others were injured in the attack.
The ties between the two countries deteriorated after Nepal altered its map and emblem by means of a parliamentary amendment to include three disputed territories – Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh.
Earlier in the day, Nepal’s Foreign Ministry waded into the India-China border dispute urging both the countries to resolve the ongoing dispute peacefully.
“Nepal is confident that our friendly neighbours India & China will resolve, in the spirit of good neighbourliness, their mutual differences through peaceful means in favour of bilateral, regional & world peace and stability,” read the statement by the govt of Nepal.
