We have gone back to 2020 patrolling: S Jaishankar on India, China agreement
New Delhi/IBNS: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Monday that the Indian and Chinese armies will resume patrolling in a similar way they had before the border face-off began in May 2020.
"We reached an agreement on patrolling, and we have gone back to the 2020 position. With that we can say the disengagement with China has been completed. Details will come out in due course," Jaishankar told NDTV Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Pugalia during a summit hosted by the channel.
"There are areas which for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we had been doing till 2020," Jaishankar said.
The External Affairs Minister said the LAC breakthrough is a good development which culminated as a result of "patient and persevering diplomacy".
"... At various points of time people almost gave up. We have always maintained on the one hand we obviously had to do counter deployment, and we have been negotiating since September 2020. It has been a very patient process, though more complicated than how it should have been," Jaishankar told NDTV.
"The important thing is if we have reached an understanding, I think what it does is it creates a basis for peace and tranquillity along the border, which were there before 2020. That was a major concern. If there is no peace and tranquillity, how can other areas of bilateral ties improve?" he said.
New Delhi and Beijing reached an agreement earlier in the day to resume patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, media reports said.
“As a result of the discussions that have taken place over the last several weeks, an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border area and this is leading to dis-engagement and eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was quoted as saying by India Today.
The agreement has been reached between the two countries ahead of Indian PM Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to Russia for BRICS.
The relationship between India and China touched a new low in 2020 following a heated clash in the Galwan Valley.
Galwan Clash
The Galwan skirmish erupted from a dispute over a temporary bridge built by the Chinese in the Galwan River valley in Ladakh.
On June 15, Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a six-hour clash in the rugged terrain of Ladakh, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with makeshift weapons such as stones, batons, and iron rods.
The face-off occurred in near-complete darkness and freezing temperatures, leading to fatalities as soldiers fell or were pushed from ridges.
Twenty Indian soldiers were martyred in the clash, while China officially acknowledged four casualties, although reports indicate higher Chinese losses, as soldiers drowned in the choppy waters of the Galwan River.
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