India, China to hold border talks today, Doklam on agenda.
Business Standard
ANI New Delhi
December 22, 2017
This special representative meeting is not only a
high-level channel for the border issue discussion but also the platform for
strategic communication.
National Security
Adviser Ajit
Doval and his Chinese counterpart state councilor Yang
Jiechi will hold the next round of formal negotiations on the
boundary issue later today.
This comes almost four months after the 73-day-long
military stand-off at the Doklam plateau
in the tri-junction region.
In the 20th round of special representatives talks since
the establishment of the Special Representatives (SR) mechanism in 2003, Doval
and Jiechi are expected to discuss ways to maintain peace and tranquillity along
the 4,000-km-long border.
The two representatives will also discuss the Doklam stand-off.
Last Doval and Jiechi had met during the BRICS summit in
Xiamen in September.
Reportedly, the decision to hold talks in the connection
was taken at a meeting held last week between External Affairs Minister (EAM)
Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the
Russia-India-China (RIC)
conference here.
However, the announcement of the meeting was made by MEA on
Wednesday.
"At the invitation of Ajit Doval, National Security
Adviser and the Special Representative of India on
the Boundary Question, Yang Jiechi, State Councillor and Member of the
Politburo of Communist Party of China's Central Committee and Special
Representative of China on
the Boundary Question, will visit India on
December 22 to hold the 20th meeting of special representatives," MEA spokesperson
Raveesh Kumar said during a media briefing.
Kumar averred that the discussions will be focused on the
boundary issue, adding "we, of course, attach a lot of importance to this
dialogue mechanism."
On Tuesday, Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying while addressing a
media briefing said that the Doklam stand-off
had posed a "major test" for bilateral ties.
Hua also stressed that lessons should be learned from the
conflict to circumvent similar situation in the future.
"This special representative meeting is not only a
high-level channel for the border issue discussion but also the platform for
strategic communication," she said.
She further said that the meeting was not only a
high-level channel for the border issue discussion but also the platform for
strategic communication.
"In 2017, China-India relations
have maintained a good momentum generally but the Doklam incident
posed a major test for the two countries. We should learn lessons from this
incident to avoid any further conflict of this kind in the future," she
added.
The last round of SRs meeting was held in Beijing in
April 2016.
The Doklam standoff
began on June 16 over People's Liberation Army's plans to build a road in the
area claimed by Bhutan.
The conflict came to an end on August 28 after the tw0
sides agreed to withdraw their respective troops from the Doklam plateau
and the Chinese troops stopped building a key road close to India's corridor.
Reference-http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/india-china-to-hold-border-talks-today-doklam-on-agenda-117122200046_1.html
Comments
Post a Comment