Source: The Indian Express | Original Published At: 2024-10-22 08:22:09 UTC
Key Points
- India and China reached agreement on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)
- Chinese Foreign Ministry confirms progress on border issues without providing details
- Disengagement process completed, restoring pre-2020 border status quo
- Agreement follows sustained diplomatic/military negotiations and precedes Modi-Xi meeting at BRICS Summit
A day after India said that it had reached an agreement with China on patrolling arrangements in the border areas, Beijing said on Tuesday that the two sides “have reached a solution” on “relevant matters” but did not give any details.
The Global Times reported that in response to questions about the reported agreement between India and China on border patrols in disputed areas, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian “confirmed progress”.
“China and India have maintained close communication through diplomatic and military channels regarding border-related issues. Currently, the two sides have reached a solution on the relevant matters, which China views positively. In the next phase, China will work with India to effectively implement the solution plan, spokesperson Lin Jian stated,” the Global Times said.
On the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the BRICS Summit starting Tuesday in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan in Russia’s southwest, Jian reportedly said, “We will keep you updated if anything comes up.”
The announcement of the agreement was made on Monday by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in New Delhi. “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. As a result of these discussions, agreement has been arrived on 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,” Misri had said, briefing reporters.
On Monday, during an interaction at the NDTV World Summit, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had called it a “positive and good” development. “I think it creates a basis… peace and tranquillity, which should be there in the border areas, which was there before 2020, we will be able to come back to that,” he had said.
Jaishankar had referred to Misri’s statement, saying, “What foreign secretary has said is what I can also say: That we have reached an agreement on patrolling, and with that, we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020. We can say that the disengagement process with China has been completed… There are areas where, for various reasons after 2020, because they had blocked us, so we had blocked them. So what has happened is we have reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling.”
This development took place four and a half years after Chinese incursions in eastern Ladakh triggered a military standoff along the Line of Actual Control and sent bilateral ties south.