EAM: Responded to challenge at northern border resolutely

New Delhi, December 9

India has had an “exceptionally difficult” challenge along the northern borders in the past three years and the country responded to it very resolutely and has been maintaining the kind of military deployment necessary for national security, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday on the lingering row in eastern Ladakh with China.

Explaining how the Modi government made choices with confidence however difficult these might be, Jaishankar, in an address at the FICCI, said: “It could even be what happens at our border. Again you all know in the past three years, we have had an exceptionally difficult time in terms of the challenges on our northern borders.” “Even though this happened in the middle of Covid, we responded very resolutely, very determinedly and to date we are still deployed in whatever manner is necessary for our national security,” the minister said. The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh even as the two sides completed disengagement from several areas following extensive diplomatic and military talks. Jaishankar explained how India tried to create global awareness against terrorism or went ahead for cooperation under the Quad framework though there was a narrative that it could make somebody uncomfortable, seen as an oblique reference to China.