India says it reached a pact with China on military patrols along their disputed border

NEW DELHI (AP) — India and China have agreed to a pact on military patrols along their disputed border in the Himalayas after a standoff that began with a deadly clash in 2020, India’s foreign ministry said Monday.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the pact is to lead to the “disengagement” of troops at the Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants. Misri did not specify whether it means the withdrawal of the tens of thousands of additional troops stationed by the two countries along their disputed border in northern Ladakh region, after their armies clashed in 2020.

There was no immediate comment from Beijing.

Misri said the pact was a result of several rounds of talks over the past few weeks between Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators, and that it will lead to “eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020.”

The announcement was made on the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia for the BRICS summit, which also involves China. Local media reported that Modi could hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the event.

Ties between India and China deteriorated in July 2020, after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

The Line of Actual Control, or LAC, separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso lake, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multitier deployment.

Top Indian and Chinese army commanders have held several rounds of talks since the military clash to discuss the disengagement of troops from areas of tension.

India and China fought a war over their border in 1962. The Line of Actual Control divides the areas of physical control rather than territorial claims. According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long, but China claims a considerably shorter figure.

India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said the pact is “a product of very patient and very persevering diplomacy” and that it will resume military patrolling the way it was before the 2020 clash.

“Hopefully, we will be able to come back to peace and tranquility. And that was our major concern, because we always said that if you disturb peace and tranquility, how do you expect the rest of the relationship to go forward,” Jaishankar told Indian news channel NDTV.

Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press