India, China reach breakthrough agreement on patrolling along LAC

New Delhi: Ahead of a likely meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia this week, India on Monday announced that it has reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. This major breakthrough is expected to end the over four-year-long military standoff.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the agreement was finalised following negotiations by the two sides over the last several weeks and that it will lead to a resolution of the issues that had arisen in 2020.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Indian and Chinese soldiers will be able to resume patrolling in the way they had been doing before the border face-off began and the disengagement process with China has been completed, PTI reported.

Prime Minister Modi and President Xi are likely to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan either Tuesday or Wednesday.
It is understood that the agreement will facilitate patrolling in Depsang and Demchok areas as there were major unresolved issues in these two areas.

"Over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other in a variety of forums," the foreign secretary said at a media briefing.

"As a result of these discussions, agreement has been arrived at patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020," he said. "We will be taking the next steps on this," Misri added.

Jaishankar described finalisation of the agreement as a "good development". "We reached an agreement on patrolling and with that the disengagement that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020 and we can say with that the disengagement process with China has been completed," he said.