EAM hails military, deft diplomacy for India-China LAC patrolling agreement

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday credited the breakthrough agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to the military which worked in “very very unimaginable” conditions and deft diplomacy.

Responding to a question during an interaction in Pune, Jaishankar said it was still a bit early for the normalisation of relations which would naturally take time to rebuild a degree of trust and willingness to work together. He said when PM Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping at Kazan in Russia for the BRICS summit, it was decided that the foreign ministers and National Security Advisors of the two countries would meet and see how to move forward.

“If today, we have reached where we have…One is because of our determined effort to stand our ground and make our point. The military was there at the LAC in very very unimaginable conditions to defend the country and the military did its part and diplomacy did its part,” Jaishankar said.

Over the decade, India improved its infrastructure. Part of the problem is that in the earlier years, the border infrastructure was really neglected, he added. “Today, we have put in five times more resources annually than there used to be a decade ago which is showing results and enabling the military to actually be effectively deployed. The combination of these (factors) has led to where it is,” he said.

Earlier this week, India announced it had reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, in a major breakthrough in ending the over four-year-long military standoff. Since 2020, the situation on the border has been very disturbed which understandably negatively impacted the overall relationship. Since September 2020, India had been negotiating with the Chinese on how to find a solution, he said.

The EAM said there were different aspects of this solution. The pressing one is disengagement because troops are very close to each other and the possibility of something happening existed. Then there is de-escalation because of troop build-up on both sides, he added.