India has announced that it has reached an agreement with China on patrolling at the remaining friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. This marks a significant breakthrough in the prolonged dispute, following weeks of negotiations between the two nations.
In a press briefing on Monday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the agreement would result in a withdrawal and an end to the problems that emerged in 2020.
“Over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other in a variety of forums,” he said.
Notably, the agreement covers patrolling in the Demchok and Depsang areas.
Misri claimed, “As a result of these discussions, the agreement has arrived at patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020. We will be taking the next steps on this.”
The Indian and Chinese armed forces have been engaged in a standoff since May 2020. Despite their disengagement from several locations of dispute, the border conflict has not yet been fully resolved.
After a horrifying clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020—the first severe conflict between the two sides in decades—the ties between the two countries dramatically deteriorated.
India has insisted that unless there is peace in the border regions, its relations with China cannot return to normal.
India has consistently pushed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to withdraw from the Depsang and Demchok regions in every negotiation since the dire circumstances started.
Earlier, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar stated that around 75 per cent of the “disengagement issues” with China have been resolved, but the larger concern has been the growing militarisation of the border.
“Now those negotiations are going on. We made some progress. I would say roughly you can say about 75 per cent of the disengagement problems are sorted out. We still have some things to do,” he said at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
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