S Jaishankar established results amid “heated” talks | India News

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar (file photo)

NEW DELHI: Minister for Foreign Affairs S Jaishankar He clearly told his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, during talks that ended late Thursday night in Moscow, that India would not decline until there was a complete and verifiable disconnect at all points in LAC.
The conversations, which heated up a bit, saw Jaishankar establishing India’s bottom line: the overall India-China relationship will suffer if there is no peace on the border. Second, the “root cause” of the current crisis is that Chinese forces violate existing agreements with their massive build-up in April and May and transgressions that forced India to reflect positions and deployments.
The main sources here said that the Indian mantra in LAC it would be “verifying” China’s disconnection promises. In recent weeks, Chinese troops have repeatedly defaulted on their commitments.
Interestingly, the Chinese reading of the meeting has Jaishankar saying that “the Indian side did not consider the development of India-China relations to depend on solving the border issue and India does not want to back down.” Indian officials at the meeting told TOI that India had emphasized that the relationship depended on a peaceful border. The Chinese side has been pushing the idea that the overall relationship can be insulated from the border crisis.
In Moscow, Wang Yi was quoted as saying that India and China had reached a “consensus” and were willing to “meet halfway.” Indian sources said that Jaishankar told Wang that the recent incidents in eastern Ladakh had impacted the development of the bilateral relationship and that an urgent resolution was in everyone’s interest.
Shares in India in recent months, targeting Chinese applications, technology, investments and projects, have made it clear that the overall relationship would be profoundly affected by events in LAC. In his interventions, Jaishankar emphasized that since the India-China “thaw” of 1981, relations have been on a “positive trajectory” but that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is essential for the development of ties. .
The Indian side lobbied the Chinese about why they had amassed troops and equipment throughout LAC, but received no credible explanation. The troop concentration was in direct contravention of the 1993 and 1996 agreements, compounded by the “provocative” behavior of Chinese troops, sparking the Galwan clashes on June 15.
This has raised suspicions among Indian politicians that the Chinese should not take the floor. The Indian side believes that the Chinese may repeat this behavior even after a disengagement agreement, so New Delhi will carefully monitor the next actions.
Jaishankar also conveyed that India wanted to return to the status quo ante, which meant that the troops had to return to their permanent posts. But how this process would be accomplished in phases (the deployments are so large they will take weeks), would be determined by the military leadership.
But the immediate task is to make sure the disconnect is complete and verifiable, the sources said. “That is necessary to prevent any adverse incidents in the future. The final disposition of the deployment of troops to their permanent posts and the phase of the process must be worked out by the military commanders,” said a source.