Indian troops conducting patrols to verify disengagement at Depsang and Demchok
.jpg "Indian troops conducting patrols to verify disengagement at Depsang and Demchok")
India said on Saturday that its troops are conducting patrols at Demchok and Depsang along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to verify the disengagement of frontline forces of India and China following a military standoff that lasted more than four years.
The two countries reached an agreement on October 21 on patrolling in Ladakh sector of the LAC, and this was meant to lead to disengagement and resolution of issues related to the face-off that began in April-May 2022. Two days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years in the Russian city of Kazan and agreed to revive several mechanisms to resolve the border issue and normalise bilateral relations.
“You are all aware that on October 21, 2024, the last phase of disengagement was agreed upon between India and China,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular media briefing.
“As a result, verification patrolling has commenced on mutually agreed terms in Demchok and Depsang,” he said, referring to the two “friction points” on the LAC that were the focus of diplomatic and military discussions between India and China over the past two years.
People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that the patrolling by Indian forces is aimed at verifying that troops and equipment had been pulled back to a specified and mutually agreed distance from the face-off sites. The disengagement of Indian and Chinese troops at Demchok and Depsang began on October 23 and was completed on October 30, the people said.
As part of the disengagement process, the Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) dismantled temporary structures that came up at Demchok and Depsang after the standoff began. The disengagement will allow Indian troops to access key patrolling points from which they were blocked by Chinese forces in recent years.
Jaiswal said further details will be available “as things move forward”. He added that India and China had agreed during the meeting between Modi and Xi in Kazan that “relevant dialogue mechanisms at the level of foreign ministers and other officials will be used to stabilise and rebuild bilateral relations”.
He added: “We will let you know when these mechanisms meet to deal with issues of each other’s interest and concern.”
These developments are being seen as a key step towards ending the standoff in Ladakh sector of the LAC, which took bilateral ties to their lowest point since the border war of 1962. The relationship went into deep freeze after 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops were killed in a brutal clash at Galwan Valley in June 2020 – the first fatalities on the LAC in 45 years.
Modi and Xi have agreed that the Special Representatives on the border issue – India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi – will meet at “an early date” to oversee management of peace and tranquillity on the LAC and to “explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question”.
Dialogue mechanisms at the level of foreign ministers and other officials will be used to stabilise and rebuild bilateral ties. However, no dates have been fixed so far for these planned meetings.
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