India, China to make fresh bid to resolve Eastern Ladakh standoff

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22

A couple of high-level meetings between India and China in Central Asia will make further attempts to resolve the standoff in Eastern Ladakh.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers’ Ministerial to be held on July 28 and 29 in Uzbekistan, where the issue will be on top of the agenda.

His visit will be followed by that of Defence minister Rajnath Singh to Uzbekistan next month to attend the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting and is likely to meet his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe with the aim to ease border tensions in Eastern Ladakh.

These efforts to resolve the border issue bear a semblance to a similar bid made on the sidelines of SCO Ministerial meetings in 2020, when Rajnath Singh and Jaishankar had met their counterparts in Moscow on September 4 and 10.

At his last meeting with Wang earlier this month, Jaishankar had called for an early resolution of all outstanding issues along the LAC by disengagement and de-escalation.

“India is engaged in talks with China, focusing on a path to resolve outstanding issues in Eastern Ladakh that involves disengagement, de-escalation and some degree of stability in the border areas for overall improvement in the ties,’’ MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said on Thursday.

“Our point has been that if you can resolve the issues, particularly on disengagement, that would help in de-escalation and restoration of peace and tranquillity along the LAC in the Western sector. That would be the right step towards enabling progress in bilateral relations,” he had added.

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