{"id":26029,"date":"2020-05-25T18:06:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T12:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/indian-army-chief-has-hurt-gurkha-sentiments-nepal-defence-minister\/"},"modified":"2020-05-25T18:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T12:36:47","slug":"indian-army-chief-has-hurt-gurkha-sentiments-nepal-defence-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=26029","title":{"rendered":"Indian Army chief has hurt Gurkha sentiments: Nepal Defence Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Nepal army has, however, maintained silence on territorial dispute<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian Army chief\u2019s comments on the Kalapani dispute had hurt the sentiments of Nepali Gurkhas who have a long tradition of sacrifice for India, Nepal\u2019s Defence Minister Ishwor Pokhrel said on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview to online news outlet The Rising Nepal<\/em>, he said General Manoj Naravane\u2019s indirect reference to Chinese hand behind the diplomatic spat was \u201ccondemnable\u201d and the Nepal army would fight if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith this, the Indian Chief of the Army Staff has also hurt the sentiments of the Nepali Gurkha army personnel who lay down their lives to protect India. It must now be difficult for them to stand tall in front of the Gurkha forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A political stunt\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Pokhrel termed Gen. Naravane’s comments a \u201cpolitical stunt\u201d. Such opinions were not expected from the head of the Army, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gurkhas of Nepal have a proud tradition of valour in the Indian armed forces dating back to pre-Independence era and were usually kept out of India-Nepal disputes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time that Nepal\u2019s Defence Minister has drawn the community into the ongoing spat that erupted after India inaugurated the\u00a0Darchula-Lipulekh link road\u00a0on May 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Manoj Naravane had said the link road was built on the Indian territory and that there was no cause for Nepal to agitate. \u201cThere is reason to believe that they might have raised this issue at the behest of someone else and that is very much a possibility\u201d, he statedin an online interaction with the media on the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nepal army has, however, maintained silence on this issue and declined to be drawn into the territorial dispute. Spokesperson of the Nepal army, Brig. General Bigyan Dev Pandey earlier refused to respond to General Naravane’s comments, saying the matter fell in the \u201cpolitical\u201d domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday too, he maintained the same position, saying he was \u201cnot entitled\u201d to comment on the the opinion of the Defence Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mr. Pokhrel maintained that the army of Nepal would act as and when required by Kathmandu. \u201cIt would definitely play its role in the right time, as per the directives of the government based on our Constitution… If needed, it will fight.\u201d He also noted that Nepal believed in diplomatic dialogue to find a solution to the Kalapani issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inputs from <\/em>The Hindu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nepal army has, however, maintained silence on territorial dispute The Indian Army chief\u2019s comments on the Kalapani dispute had hurt the sentiments of Nepali Gurkhas who have a long tradition of sacrifice for India, Nepal\u2019s Defence Minister Ishwor Pokhrel said on Monday. In an interview to online news outlet The Rising Nepal, he said General […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}