India and China have reached an agreement regarding patrol activities along their border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). As part of the agreement, troops from both countries will be allowed to patrol areas where they operated before the 2020 conflict. Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra announced this at a press conference on Monday. He said this agreement would pave the way for troop withdrawal in the coming days.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is traveling to Russia on Tuesday to attend the BRICS summit. The Foreign Secretary’s announcement ahead of this visit is being seen as significant.
However, the Foreign Secretary did not clearly specify whether this would result in both countries’ forces returning to their pre-conflict positions along the LAC, or what would happen to the recently created “buffer zones” for patrolling.
In June 2020, there were numerous casualties in a clash between the two countries’ forces in Galwan, Eastern Ladakh. It was alleged that Chinese forces had occupied significant Indian territory even before this clash.
India’s main opposition party, Congress, alleges that China has occupied about 2,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh. The government has not yet agreed to parliamentary debates about the Ladakh situation. Requests to take members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence to view the Ladakh situation have also been denied.
During a special briefing before the Prime Minister’s Russia visit, the Foreign Secretary said that India and China have been conducting diplomatic and military-level talks for the past few weeks. These discussions led to the agreement on patrolling along the LAC. This agreement could facilitate troop withdrawal and help avoid problems that arose in 2020.
News agency PTI has specifically reported that the agreement covers patrolling in the Depsang and Demchok areas. There have been 20 military-level meetings between the two countries since 2020 regarding maintaining stability along the LAC. However, both countries had not yet reached an agreement regarding Depsang and Demchok. The Foreign Secretary did not specify exactly which areas are covered under the new patrolling agreement.
There are rumors of a possible bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. However, the Foreign Secretary did not confirm this, saying that while discussions are ongoing with many parties, nothing has been finalized regarding bilateral meetings yet.
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