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India, China military commanders to meet on Saturday

It is going to be the 12th round of talks between the military commanders of the two sides since the standoff started in April-May 2020
Last Updated 31 July 2021, 02:20 IST

The senior military commanders of India and China will meet again on Saturday, amid indications that the two sides may have reached closer to a deal to end the standoff at Gogra and Hot Springs along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), but continue to have differences about Depsang Plains.

The meeting between the senior commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will be held at Moldo on China’s side of its LAC with India at 10:30 am on Saturday, sources in New Delhi said. It is going to be the 12th round of talks between the military commanders of the two sides since the standoff started in April-May 2020 after the Chinese PLA sought to unilaterally alter the status quo along the LAC – the de facto boundary between the two nations – and the counter-deployment by the Indian Army to resist the move.

If the meeting between the senior military commanders of India and China results in a deal between the two sides for mutual withdrawal of frontline troops from Gogra and Hot Springs along the LAC, it will be the second major breakthrough in the protracted negotiation between the two sides to resolve the 15-month-long standoff. What will, however, still remain unresolved is the face-off in Depsang Plains. The Indian Army and the Chinese PLA had earlier mutually withdrawn frontline troops from the face-off points on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso between February 10 and 21.

After External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a meeting with his counterpart in the Chinese Government, Wang Yi, in Dushanbe on July 14, New Delhi claimed that India and China had agreed that when the military commanders of the two nations would hold the next round of talks, they should discuss about all remaining face-off points, including Gogra, Hot Springs and Depsang Plains. The Chinese PLA had earlier refused to include disengagement of troops along the LAC on Depsang Plains in the agenda for talks between its senior commander and his counterpart in the Indian Army.

A source in New Delhi said that while negotiations between the two sides had resulted in progress in resolving the standoff in Gogra and Hot Springs, it might take more time to reach a deal on the face-off point in Depsang Plain.

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(Published 30 July 2021, 14:20 IST)

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