[ad_1]
SHANGHAI: China will release five Indian nationals it detained earlier this month in a region bordering Tibet, the state-run Global Times tabloid reported on Saturday (September 12), citing unidentified sources.
All five were Indian intelligence agents disguised as hunters, the newspaper said, refuting claims that they had been kidnapped.
Bilateral relations have been unusually strained since a clash in a disputed border area in June that killed 20 Indian soldiers, with an unknown number of Chinese casualties.
On Tuesday, following reports that five Indians from the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders China’s Tibet, had gone missing, an Indian minister said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army confirmed they had been found in China.
READ: Indian Army asks China’s PLA if there are missing civilians in its custody
Their disappearance coincided with a border confrontation that week in the western Himalayas, during which both accused the other of shooting into the air.
The two sides have long observed a protocol that avoids the use of firearms at the non-demarcated border, although violence has broken out in the past.
On Thursday, Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met in Moscow and agreed to reduce border tensions.
Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on China’s Twitter-like Weibo app that China-India relations were stabilizing. Observers of China’s foreign relations often view Hu’s posts on social media to gauge the sentiment of Beijing politicians.
“It seems that successive meetings between the defense ministers and the foreign ministers of China and India have played a positive role in cooling the situation,” Hu wrote.
“Furthermore, the People’s Liberation Army defended every inch of the country’s land, and the Indian Army ultimately failed to take advantage of it.”
