India presses for fair settlement of border dispute with China

India on Wednesday pressed for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the border dispute with China as NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held extensive talks focusing on "positive" direction for cross-border cooperation including resuming the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, river data sharing and border trade.

The Indian readout of the 23rd Special Representatives (SR) dialogue, however, did not mention a six-point consensus that was listed in a statement issued by the Chinese side at the end of the talks.

The two sides underlined the need to ensure peaceful conditions on the ground so that issues on the border do not hold back the normal development of bilateral relations, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

Doval and Wang agreed on the salience of "stable, predictable and amicable" India-China relations for regional and global peace and prosperity, it said.

The decision to revive the SR dialogue mechanism was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan on October 23, two days after India and China firmed up a pact for disengagement in Demchok and Depsang in eastern Ladakh, effectively ending the over four-year border standoff in the region.

"The SRs reiterated the importance of maintaining a political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship while seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for settlement of the boundary question, and resolved to inject more vitality into this process," the MEA said.

The SR dialogue took place after a gap of five years. The last round of SR dialogue was held in New Delhi in December 2019.

While India's Special Representative for the dialogue is NSA Doval, the Chinese side is headed by Foreign Minister Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China.