Ladakh clash: Third Corps Commander meeting on Tuesday at Chushul

Top commanders from the Indian Army and Chinese People’s Liberation Army will meet once again on Tuesday, giving yet another shot to resolve the ongoing tense stand-off between the forces in eastern Ladakh in an amicable manner.

“The meeting is scheduled to start at 1030 AM. This time it will be held in Chushul on the Indian side,” said a source.

The two previous such meetings between Lt Gen Harinder Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Leh-based 14 Corps and Maj Gen Liu Lin, Commander, South Xinjiang Military on June 6 and June 22 took place at Moldo in the Chinese territory opposite to Chushul.

The second one was a marathon engagement that continued for 11 hours but any big breakthrough eluded the talks.

The stand-off between Indian and PLA troops began since the onset of summer in April in multiple locations on northern banks of the Pangong lake as well as in the Galwan Valley and Depsang bulge near Daulat Beg Oldi airfield, north of Galwan.

A peace formula was framed by the two sides on June 6 but when the Indian troops want it to be implemented, it led to a bloody clash near Patrol Point 14 in the Galwan valley on June 15 in which 20 Indian soldiers including a Col rank officer and a significant number of PLA soldiers were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Historical records and satellite images show that the Chinese troops have crossed their own claim line and positioned themselves on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control. The PLA also constructed supporting infrastructure near the LAC and depth areas.

China’s original claim is listed in a document, published by the Ministry of External Affairs in 1960-1961. The document - tweeted by former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao – lists out the specific coordinates of the Chinese claim line in the Galwan river areas.

According to the document, the alignment passed over the two peaks and went south along the mountain ridge, where it crossed the Galwan river at Long. 78° 13' E, Lat. 34° 46' N.'

When these coordinates are placed on the Google Earth Pro, they show where the Chinese claim line was. When such images are compared against the recent satellite images shared by the analysts on open source platforms, it clearly establishes the fact that the PLA troops are ahead of their own claim line.

The coordinates on the Chinese claim including exact latitude and longitude figures are given in the ''Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the People's Republic of China on the Boundary Question.” Rao tweeted only two relevant pages from the report.

Issues like crossing the disputed boundary at Galwan valley and heavy fortification of the PLA troops on the northern banks of the Pangong Tso (lake) would feature in the military commanders meeting as India would press for the restoration of the status quo and complete withdrawal of the troops from the Indian side of the LAC.