National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a key meeting in Beijing on Wednesday to discuss a range of issues, including the management of peace and tranquillity along LAC and restoration of bilateral ties frozen for over four years. Doval and Yi - India and China Special Representatives for the border mechanism, discussed a roadmap to take the dialogue on the border issues ahead which witnessed a standstill due to the military standoff in eastern Ladakh.
23rd round of the Special Representatives' talks
Earlier, Doval, who is heading the Indian delegation, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday to take part in the 23rd round of the Special Representatives' talks being held after a gap of five years. The last meeting of the Special Representatives' talks took place in 2019 in Delhi. The talks began at 10 am China time.
The two officials were expected to discuss a range of issues to rebuild the bilateral ties following the October 21 agreement of disengagement and patrolling in eastern Ladakh between the two countries.
On Tuesday, China expressed optimism about the talks saying that it is ready to work with India to implement the commitments based on the common understandings reached between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping during their meeting at Kazan in Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit on October 24.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian, during a press conference, said China is ready to work with India to implement the important common understandings between the leaders of China and India, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, strengthen mutual trust through dialogue and communication, properly settle differences with sincerity and good faith, and bring bilateral relations back to the track of stable and healthy development as soon as possible.
Two SRs will discuss key issues related to border dispute: External Affairs Ministry
The External Affairs Ministry of India on Monday asserted the two SRs will discuss the management of peace and tranquillity in the border areas and explore a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question, as agreed upon during the meeting of the two leaders in Kazan.
After the Modi-Xi meeting, which was their first after five years, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil followed by a meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on China-India Border Affairs (WMCC). The military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020 and was followed by a deadly clash at the Galwan Valley in June of that year resulting in a severe strain in ties between the two neighbours. Barring trade, relations between the two countries virtually came to a standstill.
(With PTI inputs)
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