JOIN USIndia and China will this week discuss ways to settle the "tri-junction" boundary points where India and China have territorial disputes involving third countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will host China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi for the 20th round of boundary negotiatiations on Friday, Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said.
Doval and Yang are currently the Special Representatives of India and China for negotiations to resolve the boundary dispute. Their meeting on Friday is going to be the first between the two after the recent 72-day long face-off between Indian Army and Chinese People's Liberation Army at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan ended with withdrawal of troops by both sides on August 28.
They are expected to discuss ways to work with governments of the third countries to settle disputes in the "tri-junction areas", sources told the DH in New Delhi on Wednesday
New Delhi is keen to have a trilateral arrangement led by senior officials of India, China and Bhutan for settling dispute over the tri-junction boundary point.
Apart from Bhutan, India and China share tri-junction boundary points with Myanmar and Nepal – at Diphu Pass and Lipulekh Pass respectively.
New Delhi and Beijing had in 2012 agreed that the tri-junction boundary points among India, China and third countries would be finalized in consultation with the third countries.
Yang is also expected to nudge Doval to fast-track the settlement of bilateral dispute over the Sikkim Sector of the China-India boundary.
Beijing has been prodding New Delhi to agree on an "early-harvest agreement" to settle the dispute on this stretch, while continuing the negotiations on the rest of the boundary. New Delhi, however, has so far been cautious about the proposal and maintained that it would prefer a comprehensive settlement over the entire India-China boundary, rather than resolving it in piecemeal manner.
The Special Representatives of the two nations have been holding negotiations since 2003 to settle the disputed boundary. They reached an agreement in 2005 on the political parameters and guiding principles for settlement of the boundary dispute. They have since been engaged in talks on a framework for boundary settlement, which will be followed by actual demarcation of the border.
Beijing, however, insists that since the boundary between the two neighbours at Sikkim Sector had already been delimited by the 1890 convention between UK and China, the mandate of the Special Representatives exclude this stretch of the boundary. New Delhi counters the argument and maintains that while the status of Sikkim as an integral part of India has been settled and accepted by Beijing long back, China-India boundary in the Sikkim Sector remained unsettled and must be negotiated by the two governments' Special Representatives.
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