NEW DELHI: Nepal's decision to call off foreign secretary-level dialogue with Pakistan last week wasn't under pressure from India but because Kathmandu felt this wasn't the right time for it keeping in mind the ongoing Indo-Pak tensions, diplomatic sources have told TOI.

Nepal cancelled not one but two engagements with Islamabad including a dialogue between Speakers. The meetings were to take place days ahead of Indian foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale’s visit to Nepal on March 28.

"Nepal looks at India as a friend and its decision to not go ahead with the scheduled dialogue with Pakistan at a time Indo-Pak tensions are threatening to boil over shows the importance Kathmandu attaches to ties with its immediate neighbour," said a source on condition of anonymity, while denying any knowledge of India applying pressure on Nepal to cancel the meetings.

Nepal media had reported that the meeting might have been called off as India didn’t approve of it.

This is significant for India as Nepal is one Saarc country which had been pushing the Indian government to resume the Saarc summit process. The summit, which was to take place in 2016 in Pakistan, has remained stalled since the Uri terror attack that year which had left 19 Indian soldiers dead. India decided to boycott the meeting as the attack was carried out by terrorists from Pakistan-controlled territory.

As the current Chair of Saarc, Nepal wants the process to be revived as soon as possible but, as Nepal PM

has himself publicly acknowledged, the summit can happen only if there is unanimous support for it in the regional cooperation platform. Pakistan has in the past repeatedly emphasised on the need for an early Saarc summit before Nepal.

During his visit to India in January this year, Nepal foreign minister Pradip Gyawali had said that there was no reason for Saarc member states to not sit together to discuss regional cooperation and mitigate differences when even US President Donald Trump could meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

During his visit to Nepal, Gokhale also called on Oli and discussed 'matters of mutual interest.’ Gokhale’s bilateral meeting his counterpart Shanker Das Bairagi saw the 2 sides reviewing the status of implementation of the various projects including those pertaining to agriculture, connectivity, railway, waterways and other infrastructure.

"While expressing satisfaction on the progress made in many areas of cooperation in the past one year, both sides agreed to expedite progress on early resolution of pending issues," said the Nepal foreign ministry in a press release.