India’s Defense Minister to Visit Disputed Areas on Chinese Border This Week – Sources
NEW DELHI/ BEIJING, July 15- Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh is scheduled to go to the restless Ladakh region and visit frontline areas on the Line of Actual Control from July 17-18, sources in the Indian Defense Ministry told Sputnik on Wednesday. In the meantime, military commanders of India and China have met again for consultations on the border…
NEW DELHI/BEIJING, July 15 (Sputnik) – Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh is scheduled to go to the restless Ladakh region and visit frontline areas on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from July 17-18, sources in the Indian Defense Ministry told Sputnik on Wednesday.
Singh is expected to take stock of the operational preparedness of the Indian forces along the LAC. The minister will also take first-hand account of the disengagement process, as agreed during talks with Beijing earlier this month, according to the sources.
In the meantime, military commanders of India and China have met again for consultations on the border de-escalation on Wednesday.
“The fourth round of consultations between representatives of the Indian and Chinese military commands took place on July 14. Based on the consensus achieved during the previous three rounds of talks and the work implemented, the parties succeeded to achieve progress in facilitating the further pullout of troops from the LAC in the western sector and mitigation of the situation on the border,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a briefing.
As conveyed by the spokeswoman, Beijing hopes that China and India “will move toward each other, implement the negotiated consensus via actual actions and ensure peace and tranquility in the border areas through common efforts.”
Border conflicts are a permanent fixture of the India-China relations, as the countries do not have a marked border but rather a so-called Line of Actual Control, created after the 1962 war between the nations. However, the tensions got more strained as a result of skirmishes between the countries’ border forces starting May.
