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‘Encouraging’: UK welcomes steps taken by India and China to ease border tensions
Both the countries started the process after the face-of in Galwan Valley, in which India lost 20 soldiers and China suffered undisclosed number of casualties.
The UK has welcomed the steps taken by both India and China in easing the border tensions in the sensitive Ladakh sector.
“Commitments during Special Representatives’ talks are welcomed. It is encouraging. There is de-escalation, tensions seem to ease,” Sir Philip Barton, British High Commissioner to India, said at a press briefing on Thursday.
Both the countries started the process after the face-of in Galwan Valley, in which India lost 20 soldiers and China suffered undisclosed number of casualties.
There have been a series of meetings since the June 15 incident.
India and China remain committed to “complete disengagement” which is an “intricate process” and “requires constant verification”, the Indian Army had said in a statement last week.
Limited disengagement had started after at least six rounds of meetings both at the miltary and diplomatic levels.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh visited Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir last week where he said that the ongoing negotiations with China should help resolve the ongoing border dispute but he couldn’t guarantee to what extent the situation would be resolved, in another confirmation of the complex nature of the ongoing military and diplomatic negotiations between the two nuclear powers.
The government had said ahead of Singh’s statement that the complex disengagement process with China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is specifically aimed at preventing “face-off situations”, and any unilateral attempts to change the status quo on the disputed border won’t be accepted.
However, sources aware of the situation on the border said that India and China have lately failed to make a breakthrough in reducing border tensions, and the disengagement process at some points of the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) has virtually halted.
