India and China have achieved consensus on to work urgently to withdraw tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border, official sources said on Friday.
External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos, and the two leaders stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The LAC separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.
Ties between the two Asian nuclear giants deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash that resulted in killing at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese.
It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
However, both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multitier deployment, they said.
During the talks yesterday, the two foreign ministers “agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest,” the official Indian statement, issued after the talks said.
It also added that peace on the border is essential for restoring normalcy in ties between the two countries.
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The Indian minister in his opening remarks said the border issues have “cast a shadow” over India-China ties for the last four years despite considerable efforts by both sides to solve them.
“The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties,” he was quoted as saying.
Wang, on the other hand, stressed that improving China-India ties would be beneficial for both countries as well as for other nations.
According to reports the two sides also agreed to work together to maintain peace in border areas and push for progress.
