Shouldn’t expect favourable results in every round of China talks: Army chief

“As long as we keep talking, we will be able to resolve those points of divergence,” the army chief said at a defence conclave.

India should not expect favourable outcome in every round of talks being held with China to settle border issues and “points of divergence” with the neighbouring country will be resolved as long as both the nations keep talking, army chief General MM Naravane said on Thursday.

Army chief General MM Naravane.

“What I would like to put across is that we should not expect a favourable outcome in every round of talks. There are always going to be some points of convergence, some differences . As long as we keep talking, we will be able to resolve those points of divergence,” the army chief said at a defence conclave.

Earlier this month, India and China failed to make any headway in resolving the 17-month standoff in the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh during the 13th round of military talks between the two countries.

The situation that developed in eastern Ladakh last year required acclimatisation of a large number of IAF personnel and stretching of equipment to limits, but the force is “much better prepared” now in case there is a “long haul”, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari said.

“The situation that developed in eastern Ladakh last year was something that we were not very familiar with, particularly in the kind of environment that we needed to operate. It required acclimatisation of a large number of personnel at short notice, required stretching our equipment to limits, which some of it were not cleared for,” he said.