China must adhere to its border peace pacts with India, Jaishankar tells Wang in Moscow

Jaishankar conveyed to Wang that New Delhi would expect Beijing to strictly adhere to the pacts the two nations signed inked

As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterpart in the Chinese Government, Wang Yi, met in Moscow on Thursday, New Delhi and Beijing agreed to restart negotiations between the senior military commanders of the two nations to resolve the stand-off along the disputed boundary between them in eastern Ladakh.

Lt General Harinder Singh of the Indian Army and Major Gen Liu Lin of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would soon hold talks again after a hiatus of more than a month since their August 2 meeting, which was the fifth between them after the stand-off started in early May.

The senior diplomats of the two sides would also continue to hold video conferences to help end the stalemate and restart the mutually agreed process of withdrawal of the front-line soldiers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as well as thinning out of troops in the “rear areas” on both sides, sources aware of New Delhi’s engagements with Beijing told DH.

Jaishankar and Wang had a bilateral meeting on the side-line of a conclave of the Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The meeting went on till late in the evening. They earlier had a luncheon with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who has been leading Moscow’s back-channel diplomacy with New Delhi and Beijing to help defuse tension along the disputed boundary between India and China.

Just ahead of the meeting, the Global Times, a newspaper run by the Communist Party of China, published an article, describing the talks between the two ministers as the “last chance” to peacefully settle the stand-off before the advent of winter. New Delhi, however, reiterated that India remained committed to resolving the stand-off “through peaceful negotiations” with China.

No official statement about the outcome of the meeting was released till midnight.

The meeting was the second high-level engagement India and China had within a week to end the more-than-four-month-long stand-off along the LAC – the de facto boundary between the two nations in the western sector. The Defence Ministers of the two governments – Rajnath Singh and Wei Fenghe – had also held a bilateral meeting on the side-line of another SCO meet in the capital of Russia on September 4.

Jaishankar is learnt to have conveyed to Wang during the more-than-two-hour-long meeting that New Delhi would expect Beijing to strictly adhere to the pacts the two nations signed inked to avoid flashpoints in the border region till the settlement of the boundary dispute – especially the key 1993 Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the LAC.

He pointed out that the 1993 agreement, as well as the four other follow-up pacts signed in 1996, 2005, 2012 and 2013, had helped maintain calm along the disputed boundary between India and China and thus allowed the two nations to develop the overall bilateral relations.

He stressed that restoration and maintenance of the status quo along the LAC was a pre-requisite for bringing the bilateral relations bac on track, sources in New Delhi said.

Wang is learnt to have reiterated China’s stand that the Indian Army’s move on August 29-30 night on the south bank of Pangong Tso (lake) had violated the consensus reached in negotiations between senior military commanders and diplomats of the two sides. Jaishankar pointed out that Indian Army’s move was intended to pre-empt a fresh incursion bid by the Chinese PLA.

He also underlined that it was the PLA that had not adhered to the mutually agreed process of disengagement and had not withdrawn troops from the territory of India on several face-off points, including the north bank of Pangong Tso.

Tension along the LAC has escalated over the past few days, particularly on both banks of Pangong Tso, where the soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA are currently engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation.