Thursday, 15 July 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
Next round of military-level talks soon, say Ministers
India and China on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitment to resolve disputes regarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) through sustained dialogue and hold the next round of military-level talks as soon as possible.
This resolve came from the highest diplomatic level of the two countries when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held nearly an hour-long bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Incidentally, this was the second one on one and face to face meeting between the two Foreign Ministers since the stand-off began in May last year at the LAC in Ladakh. The first dialogue was in Moscow in September last year during the SCO meeting.
The latest communique from the Government after the crucial meeting in Dushanbe indicated that the stalemate persisting on the LAC in Eastern Ladakh may see some positive developments in the coming days.
In fact, the next round of parleys between the two military commanders may be announced in the next few days, sources said here. Jaishankar told Yi that a prolonged confrontation and the existing situation were not in the interest of either side. It was visibly impacting the relationship in a negative manner, he said.
The two military commanders met last in the first week of April to firm up ways to disengage from three friction points including the Hot Springs, Gogra and the Depsang Valley. However, there was no forward movement with more than one lakh soldiers from both sides now in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at these stand-off sites for more than a year.
