India presses for disengagement in remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh at 16th round of military talks with China

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) India on Sunday strongly pressed for early disengagement of troops from all the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh at the 16th round of high-level military talks with China, which took place after a gap of over four months.

In the discussions that lasted for around 12-and-a-half hours, the Indian delegation also insisted on the restoration of the status quo ante as of April 2020 — before the start of the military standoff, people familiar with the development said.

The talks began at 9:30 am at the Chushul Moldo meeting point on the Indian side of the LAC in the region, and ended at around 10 pm, they said. There were some expectations of progress at the talks on completing the disengagement process at Patrolling Point-15 in the Hot Springs area.

The Indian delegation at the talks was led by Lt-General Anindya Sengupta, the commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps, while the Chinese team was headed by South Xinjiang Military District Chief Major General Yang Lin. There was no official word on the outcome of the talks.

The 15th round of the military dialogue took place on March 11 but it failed to yield any significant outcome, with both sides, in a joint statement, reaffirming that resolution of the issues would help restore peace and tranquillity in the region and facilitate progress in bilateral relations. The Indian side pressed for disengagement of troops as soon as possible in all the remaining friction points, the people cited above said. It is learnt that the Indian delegation also sought resolution of pending issues in Depsang Bulge and Demchok.

India has been consistently maintaining that peace and tranquillity along the LAC were key for the overall development of bilateral ties. The situation in eastern Ladakh figured prominently in talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Bali on July 7. At the one-hour meeting on the sidelines of a conclave of foreign ministers of the G20 nations, Jaishankar conveyed to Wang the need for early resolution of all the outstanding issues in eastern Ladakh.

“Recalling the disengagement achieved in some friction areas, the external affairs minister reiterated the need to sustain the momentum to complete disengagement from all the remaining areas to restore peace and tranquillity in the border areas,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement after the meeting.

The MEA further said Jaishankar “reaffirmed the importance of fully abiding by bilateral agreements and protocols, and the understandings reached between the two ministers during their previous conversations.” The eastern Ladakh border standoff erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong lake areas.

Both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry. As a result of a series of military and diplomatic talks, the two sides completed the disengagement process last year on the north and south banks of the Pangong lake and in the Gogra area.

Each side currently has around 50,000 to 60,000 troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the sensitive sector.