Talks between India and China are going on; do not want to pre-judge: Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday declined to prejudge the outcome of India-China talks to resolve the military stand-off along the disputed boundary between the two nations, stating that the negotiation was “a work in progress” and “confidential”.

“Discussions (between India and China) are on, what is going on is something confidential between us and the Chinese,” the External Affairs Minister said while speaking at the Bloomberg India Economic Forum.

“There is not very much that I am in a position to say in public. I certainly do not want to prejudge it,” he said, in response to queries on the status of negotiation between the two nations to end the more-than-five-month-long stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

The senior commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA so far had seven rounds of talks, including the one they had on Monday. They had agreed during the sixth round of talks on September 21 to stop sending more troops to the scenes of the face-offs along the LAC – the de facto border between the two nations. They, however, could not yet reach an agreement on restarting the stalled process of mutually withdrawing the additional troops the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA already deployed along the LAC since the stand-off started in late April and early May.

The diplomats of India and China also held five video conferences so far to discuss ways to resolve the stand-off. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his counterpart in the Chinese Government, Wei Fenghe, had a meeting on the side-line of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit in Moscow on September 4. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also had a meeting in Moscow on September 10.

Jaishankar on Thursday said that the relations between India and China had improved as the two neighbouring nations had inked a series of agreements since 1993 on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border. “For the last 30 years, we (India and China) have built a relationship predicated on peace and tranquillity along the border,” said the External Affairs Minister.