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Nepal leader in India for security talks

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	Nepalese Prime Minister Girja Prasad Koirala right talks to journalists while Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee looks on upon his arrival at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi Tuesday, August 1, 2000. Koriala is on a two days official visit to improve relations with India. (AP Photo/Ajit Kumar)

August 2, 2000 

NEW DELHI (AP) - India's concerns about Pakistani intelligence agents operating in neighboring Nepal will be settled during talks this week, Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said Tuesday.

The two countries have a unique relationship under a 1950 treaty that allows citizens to cross the border without travel documents. But relations were damaged last year when, India says, Pakistanis took advantage of lax security at the Katmandu International Airport to hijack an Indian Airlines passenger plane to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has rejected India's identification of the hijackers, who have not been found.

Indian Airlines stopped flights to Nepal for many months, and resumed them only after Nepal had strengthened security at the airport and new rules were issued, requiring air travelers between the two countries to carry travel documents.

India has called upon Nepal to halt activities by Pakistani intelligence agents. Asked about the concerns after his ceremonial welcome at the presidential palace in New Delhi on Tuesday, Koirala said they "will be settled as we are talking with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on it."

Koirala had a meeting scheduled with Vajpayee on Tuesday night and was scheduled to meet with most of India's top Cabinet officers before leaving New Delhi on Thursday for Bangalore.

At the welcoming ceremony, Vajpayee said that although the two leaders were meeting after a gap of four years "further exchanges would be expedited and our friendship would grow from strength to strength."

Koirala, accompanied by his foreign minister, Chakra Prasad Bastola, and a 34-member business delegation, called his journey 'a goodwill visit and confidence building mission."

"Being on the last leg of my political career, I want to fill the vacuum and connect the missing links" in Indo-Nepal relations, he said. He said he wanted to ensure that "the younger generation should continue the friendly relationship between the two countries."

In March, Koirala became prime minister for the fourth time since democracy was established in 1990. He was one of the leaders 10 years ago when activists protested the three-decade autocratic rule of King Birendra, who is now a constitutional monarch.