Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai met his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of Rio +20 summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday evening.

During the meeting, the Indian PM expressed concern over Nepal's situation and expressed hope that Nepal would be able to manage the current crisis cautiously, RSS quoted PM Bhattarai as saying after the meeting.

"India wishes to see Nepal's peace process to come to a conclusion and multiparty democracy to be institutionalised," PM Bhattarai said.

The Indian PM also assured of India's support to the economic and development agendas set by Nepal. During the half-hour long meeting, the Indian side also expressed readiness to extend help in addressing Nepal's energy crisis.

Earlier, on the Rio +20 sidelines, PM Bhattarai held bilateral discussion with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Nepal's peace process and the political situation after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

Meanwhile, PM Bhattarai also held separate meetings with the President of Cuba, Raul Castro, and Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdgan, on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Conference), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday.

During the meeting with the President of Cuba, the two leaders dwelt on the matters of mutual cooperation and expressed commitment to strengthen the persisting friendly ties further to promote the best interests of the two countries.

On the occasion, the President Castro invited the Prime Minister to pay an official visit to Cuba and the Prime Minister reciprocated the invitation, said Secretary at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Leelamani Poudel.

Likewise, in a meeting with the Turkish Prime Minister today, they held discussions on the issues of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and agreed to enhance relationship between LDCs to have their voice heard in the global community.

The Turkey government has shown interest to move ahead together to explore technical, economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai quoted Prime Minister Erdgan as saying.

The Prime Minister thanked the Turkish government and Prime Minister Erdgan personally for taking initiatives to make the Istanbul Conference a huge success.

Earlier, on June 20, the Prime Minister met with Ollanta Humala, President of Peru and shared ways and means of enhancing cooperation on promoting the mountain agenda.

The two leaders agreed to work together to strengthen international cooperation on mountains in all possible areas.

The president proposed for an exchange of visits of experts between the two countries and the leaders agreed that such visits would help increase interaction and greater sharing of experience and best practices on mountain issues. nepalnews.com