There is a possibility of more talks at the military and diplomatic levels. India has always been in favour of peace. So, we hope a solution will be found out through talks, Singh said
Prime Minister Modi on Saturday left for Egypt after concluding his state visit during which he held wide-ranging talks with President Joe Biden and addressed the joint session of the US Congress.
India has told China that disengagement at all friction points is necessary to contemplate de-escalation of troops in eastern Ladakh even as the foreign ministers of the two countries agreed to establish a hotline for "timely" communication and exchange of views.
The decision to disengage the forces, locked in a bitter standoff for the last six weeks in eastern Ladakh, was taken at a nearly 11-hour-long meeting between senior Indian and Chinese commanders in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Monday.
Wang arrived in Delhi on Thursday evening in the highest-level visit between the two countries after the ties came under severe strain following the military standoff in eastern Ladakh that began nearly two years ago.
The ministry also made certain clarifications in the statement, and said, "the assertion that Indian territory is up to Finger 4 is categorically false. The territory of India is as depicted by the map of India and includes more than 43,000 sq km currently under illegal occupation of China since 1962."
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will make a statement at 12 noon in the Rajya Sabha on the border row with China in eastern Ladakh.
The sources said the talks are focused on sorting out certain issues relating to cost component, weapons package and technology sharing.
'Three decades of intensive discussions, protocols and Confidence Building Measures were jettisoned one fine morning in 2020.' 'The primary lesson that has been learnt is that that there is no reliability about the Chinese.'
"The meeting thus did not result in resolution of the remaining areas," the Army said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said this at his media briefing as he parried questions on India's assertion that consensus reached by the leaders on maintaining peace along the border cannot be swept under the carpet.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held two-back-to-back meetings with top military brass on Tuesday deliberating on the situation in eastern Ladakh after an Indian Army officer and two soldiers were killed in a violent clash with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley.
'They also agreed that for the overall development of bilateral relations it was essential to maintain enduring peace and tranquillity in the border areas,' the MEA said in a statement.
As the border standoff entered the sixth month, an early resolution to the row appeared dim with close to 100,000 Indian and Chinese troops remaining deployed in the high-altitude region and showing readiness for a long-haul. There is no official word on the talks yet but sources said the agenda was to finalise a roadmap for disengagement of troops from all the friction points.
The IAF has deployed almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in the key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the Line of Actual Control.
Northern Army commander Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi on Friday said the situation along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh was stable but in a state of "heightened alert" and asserted that there would be no security lapse on fronts of "operational preparedness and readiness" along the India-China border.
It seems that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is not in a mood to de-escalate the situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as it has continued deployment of around 40,000 troops in its front and depth areas for the Eastern Ladakh sector.
China hiked its annual defence budget by 7.1 per cent.
Col Babu was awarded the gallantry medal for resisting the Chinese Army attack while establishing an observation post in the face of the enemy in the Galwan valley in the Ladakh sector during Operation Snow Leopard.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands on Tuesday at a side event at the G20 Summit in Bali, a gesture drawing some attention because of the strained relations between the two countries over a border clash two years back.
According to estimates, both India and China have deployed more than 50,000 troops in the Eastern Ladakh sector opposite each other despite the limited disengagement in the Pangong lake sector by both sides earlier this year.
Sources said the Indian delegation was warmly greeted by senior officials of the Chinese Army before the talks began.
Jaishankar said China, in violation of the 1993 and 1996 agreements not to mass troops on the Line of Actual Control, chose to do so, and added that its attempt was obviously to unilaterally change the LAC.
This is the first such incident along the border with China that Indian armed forces personnel have been killed after a gap of nearly 45 years.
Gen Naravane said India is dealing with China in a "firm" and "non-escalatory" manner to ensure the sanctity of its claims in eastern Ladakh, and that it was even open to initiating confidence-building measures.
As tension escalated at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the sources said around 50-60 soldiers of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) approached the Indian post in the southern bank of Pangon lake area at around 6 pm but the Indian Army personnel posted there strongly confronted them, forcing their retreat.
India on Friday said rights of people in China's Xinjiang region should be "respected and guaranteed".
"How dare China kill our soldiers? How dare they take our land?" he said.
On the first day of his two-day visit to Ladakh, Gen Naravane held a series of meetings with top commanders about the evolving situation in the region as well as on India's overall combat readiness to deal with any eventualities, military sources said.
The document, which was uploaded on the defence ministry's website, was removed on Thursday morning following publication of a media report based on it.
The government has also relaxed certain rules to cut delays in military purchase like allowing the three services to procure required weapons and equipment from a single vendor, the sources said.
India on Thursday approved capital acquisition of a plethora of indigenously-developed military hardware including indigenous BrahMos missiles, marine diesel engine, artillery gun system, electronic warfare suits and utility helicopters at a cost of Rs 70,584 crore as part of a mega procurement plan.
The 30-member committee, chaired by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union minister Jual Oram and of which Rahul Gandhi is also a member,wishes to visit the eastern Ladakh region in the last week of May or in June.
His attack on the government came a day after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh assured Parliament that India has not conceded anything in the sustained talks with China and it will not allow even an inch of its territory to be taken away by anyone.
Gen Naravane reviewed the overall security situation in the region with Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Yogesh Kumar Joshi, commander of the 14 Corps Lt Gen Harinder Singh and other senior Army officials.
The visit comes a week after 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in a brutal assault by the Chinese military in Galwan Valley which escalated the border tension.
India on Thursday said that ensuring a comprehensive disengagement of troops in all the friction areas in eastern Ladakh is the 'immediate task', remarks that came ahead of another round of military talks with China on the border standoff.
'China is playing the big global game.' 'Their ambitions lie far beyond the Line of Actual Control.'
The disengagement of troops of the Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army from the Line of Actual Control was reached after sustained negotiations at the military and diplomatic level, said the ministry of external affairs last week.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to call another high-level meeting later today, they added.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances