M A I N   N E W S

China says can go a few steps back, India wants total retraction
Ajay Banerjee/TNS

New Delhi, April 30
India has shot down a proposal by China that troops of both sides could slightly back off from their existing eyeball-to-eyeball position in Ladakh even as Defence Minister AK Antony made it clear that the country would take every possible step to safeguard its interests.

Chinese troops have to go back to positions held before the April 15 intrusion to defuse the current border crisis, the Indian side said during a flag meeting with China today. The third flag meeting, held between Brigadier-level officials at the ‘Spanggur-Gap’ in eastern Ladakh, lasted for nearly four hours. China, sources said, offered a phased response and it looked that as if it was testing India’s military resolve.

The Chinese side suggested that troops can be asked to go back by a few hundred metres to defuse current tension. At present, troops are stationed at a distance of around 80 m across the Raki Nullah near India’s Advanced Landing Ground in the Daulat Beg Oldie sector.

India wants that China should withdraw its troops in totality, making it clear that forces have to be at the spot where they were stationed before the April 15 intrusion. The face-off is taking place at desolate, barren and tree-less expanse at an altitude of 16,700 feet in a snow- bound area. Both sides have pitched insulated tents some 800 m away from each other. The tents are used as staging ground from where a small contingent of troops is dispatched to the face-off site. Both sides hold banner drills asking each other to withdraw.

India has yet again reminded China that their act of staying on disputed sections of the Line of Actual Control was a violation of the April 2005 protocol which said soldiers of either side will back-off on seeing each other and not stay put in disputed areas.

“There should not be any doubt that the country remains unanimous in its commitment to take every possible step, at all levels, to safeguard its interests,” Antony told his military commanders in New Delhi. Later, the Defence Minister was briefed by the National Security Adviser and three Service chiefs on the LAC situation.

Describing the current situation in Ladakh as ‘not one of our creation’, Antony said India remains committed to a peaceful resolution of the situation through dialogue within the framework of agreements for maintaining peace and tranquility. Antony said bilateral relations with China are, at times, bedeviled by border issues, particularly along the LAC.

Third flag meet

Chinese troops have to go back to positions held before the April 15 intrusion to defuse the current border crisis, the Indian side said during a flag meeting with China on Tuesday

Antony talks tough

Defence Minister AK Antony made it clear that the country would take every possible step to safeguard its interests. He was briefed by the NSA and three Service chiefs on the LAC situation