RIC meet to set tone for lowering LAC tensions : The Tribune India

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RIC meet to set tone for lowering LAC tensions

A virtual meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia on Tuesday will form a critical component of New Delhi’s move to lower tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where a meeting of senior army generals on Monday failed to provide a breakthrough. Photo for representation only.

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 22

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This second conversation between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart within a week is expected to pave the way for a more substantial meeting in Beijing between Indian Ambassador Vikram Misri and Vice Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui later in the week. The effort will be to leverage the lowering of tensions to seek a pre-May 5 status quo in several sectors on the LAC as well as agree on not raising permanent structures in overlapping areas, said sources. The tenor of the talks will be undergirded by conversations currently on in Moscow between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his counterpart Sergei Shoigu, a trusted Putin aide.

Sources said Singh’s visit was announced after several chips had fallen in place including the first telephonic conversation between Jaishankar and Wang a day after 20 Indians and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers died in a scuffle in the Galwan valley on June 15. That Singh reached Moscow two days before the Victory Parade commemorating World War II suggests intense conversations with trusted Putin aides, they said. In contrast to Donald Trump’s repeated offers to insert the US in cooling down tensions after castigating China, the Russian approach has been discreet. The Kremlin has let it be known that it is confident that both countries will be able to sort out their differences. Russian Ambassador in India Nikolai Kudashev has been regularly briefed on the situation by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. Russian interest has been leavened with India clearing orders worth Rs 5,000 crore for more MiG and Sukhoi fighter jets.