Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday indicated a possible visit to Nepal later this year in response to a renewed invitation from his Nepalese counterpart K.P. Sharma Oli when the two jointly inaugurated the second Integrated Check Post at Jogbani-Biratnagar via videoconferencing.

Oli iterated his invitation — first extended during their telephone conversation on New Year’s Day — and said the time had come to resolve all pending issues between India and Nepal through dialogue. Modi responded that he looked forward to visiting Nepal this year.

The possibility of a summit-level meeting comes at a time new irritants have crept into the bilateral relationship already strained by Nepal’s expanding ties with China. A key irritant pertains to the old differences over Kalapani — a 35km stretch at the tri-junction of India, Nepal and China — which were resurrected by the new maps issued by India in November after the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir came into effect.

Nepal’s foreign ministry called the decision to include it in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand as unilateral, stating that the publication of the map when a joint ministerial commission has referred the matter to the foreign secretaries of the two sides for settlement was “not acceptable”. Kalapani — which has been controlled by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police since 1962 — is claimed by Nepal as part of the Darchula district.

After Nepal red-flagged the new map, New Delhi insisted that it “accurately depicts the sovereign territory of India”, insisting it has in “no manner revised our boundary with Nepal”.

India also pledged commitment to the ongoing boundary delineation exercise with Nepal but sources conceded that not much work had been done on this front in recent years.

Add to this the delay in addressing Kathmandu’s long-standing demand to rework the 1950 India-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty which was signed when Nepal was a monarchy. The pact is seen by the Maoists there as favouring New Delhi.