New Delhi, July 27
India and China today completed the third round of their political-level border talks wherein the two countries’ Special Representatives — National Security Adviser J.N. Dixit and Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo — had candid discussions.
Sources said the two Special Representatives exchanged their respective governments’ positions and no major breakthrough or any tectonic shift in their stated positions could come out of the two-day talks.
No breakthrough was expected either, sources added, because this highly sensitive and complicated issue has been hanging fire for decades. This was the first time the UPA government held Special Representatives-level talks with China.
It is understood that India negotiated with conviction without being wary of the Chinese attitude towards solving the festering border dispute due to which the two countries went to a brief war 42 years ago.
The two sides decided to continue these negotiations away from the media glare.
There was no Joint Statement or “a joint agreed position” at the end of the talks.
The Ministry of External Affairs, on its part, issued a terse 11-line statement in which it said the Dixit-Dai talks were held “in a friendly, constructive and cooperative atmosphere”.
The MEA statement also said that Mr Dai called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh . “During the call on the Prime Minister, he (Mr Dai) handed over a letter from the Chinese Premier, Mr Wen Jiabao. The two sides agreed to hold the next meeting in Beijing at a mutually convenient date,” it said.
