(TibetanReview.net, Oct28’24) –India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said Oct 26 that the breakthrough agreement with China on patrolling arrangement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh’s Demchok and Depsang plains does not mean that all issues between the two countries have been resolved. However, the disengagement allows us to look at the next step, the PTI news agency Oct 27 cited him as saying.
Apart from that, normalizing relations will naturally take time and requires rebuilding a degree of trust and willingness to work together, Jaishankar has said at an event in Pune.
He has explained that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping at Kazan in Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, it was decided that the foreign ministers and National Security Advisors of the two countries would meet and see how to move forward.
“The latest step (of disengagement) was the Oct 21 understanding that patrolling will take place in Depsang and Demchok. This will allow us now to look at the next step. It is not like everything has been resolved but the disengagement which is the first phase we have managed to reach that level,” Jaishankar has said.
While China’s huge border infrastructure advantage in Tibet had given its People’s Liberation Army the upper hand thus far, Jaishankar has said India has made great stride in recent years on its side of the border.
Over the decade, India improved its infrastructure, he has said, adding that part of the problem is that in the earlier years, the border infrastructure was really neglected.
“Today we have put in five times more resources annually than there used to be a decade ago which is showing results and enabling the military to actually be effectively deployed. The combination of these (factors) has led to where it is,” he has said.
The Oct 21 deal on patrolling along the LAC in eastern Ladakh was a major breakthrough in ending the over four-year-long military standoff.
Since 2020, the situation on the border has been very disturbed which understandably negatively impacted the overall relationship. Since Sep 2020, India has been negotiating with the Chinese to find a solution, Jaishankar has said.
* * *
Emphasizing the immediate issues to be resolved before talking about any long-term settlement, Jaishankhar has said one of the immediate pressing issues is disengagement because troops are very, very close to each other and the possibility of something happening existed.
Then there is de-escalation because of troop buildup on both sides, he has added.
And then “there is a larger issue of how you manage the border and negotiate the boundary settlement. Right now everything that’s going on is concerning the first part which is disengagement,” he has explained.
Meanwhile, following the agreement, the two countries have begun troop disengagement at the two friction points at Demchok and Depsang Plains in eastern Ladakh and this process is likely to be completed by Oct 28-29. This will be followed by the resumption of patrolling from both sides in accordance with the protocol reached during the Oct 21 deal.
Similar deal has not been reached on the other three or so troubled Tibet-border areas in Ladakh on which there has only been withdrawal of troops with moratorium on patrolling and creation of buffer zones reportedly on the Indian side as temporary solutions.