Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi met Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on late Tuesday evening as differences in the ruling Nepal Communist Party is said to be widening, ANI reports. The duo held talks for around two hours as they looked to unify the party in power and iron out the internal issues.

“Chinese Ambassador was here last late evening and held discussion with Prime Minister Oli for nearly two hours,” an official from the PM’s secretariat confirmed to ANI.

The Nepal Communist Party is scheduled to hold a secretariat meeting on Wednesday afternoon. However, Oli requested former Prime Minister and Chairman of the party Pushpa Kamal Dahal to postpone the concerned meeting. Dahal remained insistent on convening the conference as decided, which has increased tensions in the nine-member secretariat.

Dahal’s demands had the backing of Madhav Nepal, Jhal Nath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam, and Narayan Kaji Shrestha. However, Oli garnered support from the likes of Ishwar Pokhrel, Ram Bahadur Thapa and Bishnu Poudel as two camps seem to have emerged within the party’s high command.

Regarding the Chinese Ambassador’s talks with the Prime Minister, a source mentioned, “They held a discussion about the party matters to keep the party intact and government in form. Ambassador Yanqi stressed to continue negotiation to settle down the disputes and reach consensus.”

Oli’s apprehensions from the secretariat’s meeting stems from the fact that Dahal had demanded his resignation in the previous conference. The former Prime Minister had presented a 19-page document that termed the 68-year-old politician’s activities to be “inexcusable”.

Dahal alleged that Oli had disobeyed party’s decisions, election manifesto, disregarded good governance and even brought up these issues during his talks with President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Tuesday.