KATHMANDU, November 30. /TASS/. Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed his readiness to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin in his country in an exclusive interview with TASS, and said he is prepared to make a trip to Russia himself.

According to the Nepalese prime minister, the time is ripe in the bilateral relationship for high-level visits between the two countries. "We hope that [there will be] a high-level visit, [which] is quite necessary," he noted. Putin "can come to Nepal and I can also go to Russia," the prime minister stressed.

The head of Nepal’s government noted that he had had an opportunity to meet with Putin at the 2016 summits of the BRICS group and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in Goa, India. "Unfortunately, we could not have a separate discussion with President Putin, only in a collective way," Dahal added. He is confident that if there is a high-level visit, things will move "in a very positive direction."

The current Nepalese prime minister is one of the most prominent politicians in South Asia. As secretary general of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and revolutionary commander in Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil war, he was engaged in underground fighting and received the nom de guerre Comrade Prachanda (meaning "fierce"). After the Nepalese monarchy fell in 2008, Prachanda served as prime minister from August 2008 to May 2009 and again from August 2016 to May 2017, assuming the office for a third time on November 26, 2022. His interview with TASS marked the first time he agreed to give an interview to a Russian media outlet.