New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a bilateral meeting in Russia, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said “broad consensus” had been achieved by India and China in select areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) through the power of dialogue.
These are the first remarks by the defence minister since Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced the LAC agreement on October 21.
The defence minister was speaking at the Chanakya Defence Dialogue in New Delhi. “India and China have been involved in talks both at diplomatic and military levels to resolve their differences in certain areas along the LAC. Pursuant to the talks, broad consensus has been achieved to restore the ground situation based on the principles of equal and mutual security,” Rajnath Singh said on Thursday.
Singh added that the consensus achieved included patrolling and grazing in traditional areas and that this was the power of engaging in dialogues since, sooner or later, solutions emerged.
The areas include Depsang Plains and Demchok, friction points that had, for long, remained unresolved, as reported by ThePrint.
Rajnath Singh’s comments incidentally came after the Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi said a couple of days ago that both nations were exploring ways to restore trust at the border.
The foreign secretary had announced that the two countries, through military and diplomatic negotiators, had been in close contact and eventually agreed on an arrangement for patrolling areas along the LAC.
As reported by ThePrint earlier, in Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping spent close to an hour discussing the situation at the border during their bilateral meeting, the first in five years. They also reviewed other aspects of the India-China ties from a “strategic” perspective.
India and China had, since early 2020, been caught in a standoff along the LAC at several friction points. Both countries had earlier disengaged at several friction points, such as Galwan, the north bank of Pangong Tso, Kailash Range, and the Gogra-Hot Springs, creating buffer zones in these areas.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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