Sunday Times 2
India, China agree to end Himalayan face-off
View(s):(Reuters) – India and China have agreed to pull back troops ranged against each other on a remote Himalayan plateau, the Indian government said on Friday, ending their biggest face-off on the disputed border in a year.
The two armies mobilised about 1,000 soldiers each in Ladakh this month, accusing the other of building military infrastructure in violation of an agreement to maintain peace until a resolution of the 52-year territorial row.
Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said she met her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in New York on Thursday and the two agreed to withdraw their soldiers to their original positions by the end of the month.
“The bad phase is over,” state-run All India Radio quoted her as telling reporters in New York.
China defeated India in a brief war in 1962 and since then the border has remained unresolved.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the border was in “tranquility”.
“The dispute has been effectively managed,” she said at a daily briefing. The flare-up at the border occurred in the middle of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit aimed at ramping up commercial relations under India’s business-focused Prime Minister Narendra Modi who took office in May.
India said hundreds of Chinese troops had intruded into the Chumar sector of Ladakh, equipped with bulldozers and trucks, to build a road. China earlier had protested against India’s decision to erect an observation hut on a hilltop in the area.