Defense Chief of Staff Bipin Rawat says the situation is tense at the Royal Line of Control, the de facto border between the two Himalayan nations.
India’s top military commander has said that a tense border clash with Chinese forces in the western Himalayas could spark a larger conflict, even as senior commanders from both sides gathered near the front line for their eighth round of talks. in recent months.
Defense Chief of Staff Bipin Rawat said the situation was tense at the Royal Line of Control, the de facto border in eastern Ladakh, where thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a months-long confrontation.
“We will not accept any changes to the actual control line,” Rawat said in an online address.
“In the general security calculation, border clashes, transgressions and unprovoked tactical military actions that lead to a major conflict cannot therefore be ruled out,” he said.
The brutal hand-to-hand combat in June left 20 Indians and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead, increasing tensions and sparking large deployments in the remote and desolate border area.
Since then, both sides have tried to ease the situation through diplomatic and military channels, but have made little progress, leaving soldiers facing freezing temperatures in the snowy deserts of Ladakh.
Meanwhile, senior Indian and Chinese commanders met in Ladakh on Friday for the eighth round of talks between military leaders since the crisis began, officials in New Delhi said.
The talks would likely include discussions about a Chinese proposal to withdraw some troops from a disputed area on the north shore of Pangong Tso Lake, where the soldiers were separated by a few hundred meters, according to an Indian official.
Infantry troops, backed by artillery and armored vehicles, also clash on the southern shore of the lake, where China has been pressuring India to back down, the official said.
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