SEPTEMBER 20, 2020
India and China are scheduled to hold a Corps Commander-level talks at Moldo, on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Monday, on the border standoff. This will be the sixth such talks on the issue.
An official from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is likely to be part of Indian delegation. This is the first time that an MEA official will be present in this meeting, people aware of the developments said.
A high-powered government panel on China had on Friday reviewed the latest developments in the Ladakh sector where the two countries have been engaged in the standoff since May.
The agenda of the next round of military talks was discussed in Friday’s which was meeting attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, national security adviser Ajit Doval, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat, army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane and other top officials.
The meeting took place a day after Singh told Parliament that no force in the world can stop the Indian Army from patrolling borders, signalling a resolve to regain access to several areas that are now difficult to reach due to actions by the Chinese army along the LAC.
In the previous five meetings, the Corps commander-ranked officers have failed to break the deadlock. Monday’s meeting will be their first after the Indian Army swiftly moved and occupied key heights to prevent the People’s Liberation Army from grabbing Indian territory on the southern bank of Pangong Tso in a stealthy midnight move on August 29.
This will be the first meeting since the foreign ministers of the two countries agreed on a five-point roadmap to take forward the disengagement and de-escalation process. The five-point plan was discussed when external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi met on the margins of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet in Moscow earlier this month.
Courtesy/Source: Hindustan Times
