Nepal PM Oli wishes PM Modi on his 70th birthday

Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli on Thursday greeted his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on his 70th birthday and vowed to continue to work closely together towards strengthening bilateral relations.

Prime Minister Modi, who was born on September 17 in 1950, turned 70 on Thursday.

"Warm greetings to Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji on the auspicious occasion of your birthday. I wish you good health and happiness. We will continue working closely together to further strengthen relations between our two countries," Oli tweeted.

Oli held a telephonic conversation with Modi on India's 74th Independence Day on August 15, in the first high-level contact after the bilateral relations between the two countries came under strain following issuance of a new political map by the Himalayan nation in May.

The ties between the two countries came under strain after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated an 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8.

Nepal protested the inauguration of the road claiming that it passed through its territory. Days later, Nepal published a new political map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as its territories.

In June, Nepal's Parliament approved the new political map of the country featuring areas which India maintains belong to it.

India has termed Nepal's "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims as untenable. New Delhi has also said that Kathmandu's action violated an understanding reached between the two countries to resolve the boundary issues through talks.