Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated on Monday that India and China had reached on a patrolling agreement along their disputed border in the Himalayas, which might result in withdrawal and a resolution of a conflict that started in 2020.
The agreement was announced the night before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Russia for the Brics conference, where he may have had informal discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
After fighting between their forces on the mainly unmarked border in 2020 resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and 4 Chinese soldiers, relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have been tense.
The head of the foreign ministry, Misri, reported that over the previous few weeks, both the military and diplomatic representatives of the two nations had undertaken multiple rounds of negotiations.
“Patricking arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had risen in these areas in 2020” is the agreement that has emerged from these negotiations, he said.
Business relations between the two most populous countries in the world have suffered over the past four years due to the slow progress on diplomatic and military discussions to end the standoff. New Delhi has tightened its inspection of Chinese enterprises’ investments and halted significant projects.
The head of India’s armed forces stated earlier this month that the situation will remain delicate until the western Himalayan frontier is returned to its pre-April 2020 state, when the standoff started.
General Upendra Dwivedi stated that there was “positive signalling” from the diplomatic side and that military commanders from the two nations were in charge of carrying out the decisions made on the ground. The two sides had taken care of the “low-hanging fruits” and now need to deal with challenging problems.
Beijing did not immediately respond to Misri’s statements.
