India, China agree to urgent action to withdraw troops from disputed border

NEW DELHI (AP) — India and China have agreed to urgently take steps to withdraw tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border as part of a long-standing standoff, the Indian government said.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Laos, where they stressed the need to quickly resolve outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border that divides the two Asian nations.

This border separates territories under the control of China and India, from Ladakh in the west to the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

Relations between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash in which at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, escalating into a prolonged stalemate in rugged mountainous terrain, with each side stationing tens of thousands of troops backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of the Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan valleys, but continue to maintain additional troops as part of a multi-tiered deployment.

According to an Indian statement issued late on Thursday, the two foreign ministers “agreed on the need to take targeted and urgent steps to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest”, adding that peace on the border was essential to restore normalcy in relations between the two countries.

Jaishankar, in his opening speech, said border issues had “cast a shadow” over India-China relations for the past four years, despite considerable efforts by both sides to resolve them. “The state of the border will necessarily reflect on the state of our ties,” he said, according to the statement.

Wang stressed that improving Sino-Indian relations is beneficial to both countries as well as other nations, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported. The two sides agreed to work together to maintain peace in the border areas and push for progress, it said.

India and China fought a border war in 1962. The Line of Actual Control divides areas of physical control, not territorial claims. India says the de facto border is 3,488 kilometres (2,167 miles) long, but China says it is much shorter.

Top Indian and Chinese army commanders held several rounds of talks after the military clash to discuss disengagement of troops from areas of tension.

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This article corrects the information that the Indian government’s statement was released on Thursday evening, not Friday.