Only China can answer why its troops are on Indian border: EAM

It is up to China to answer why there are thousands of its troops on the border with India, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Thursday evening, adding that he is convinced that the “way out is through diplomacy”.

This comes ahead of a virtual meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the multilateral BRICS ( Br a z i l - Russ i a - I n d i a - China-South Africa) forum scheduled for Friday in which both Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi are expected to participate.

Meanwhile, the Chinese

CHINESE DEFENSE Minister Wei Fenghe is reported to have asked for a meeting with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to talk about India China stand-off, according to a report by an English news channel .

BOTH THE ministers are in Moscow for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit. The two ministers could meet on Friday, said the news report.

Embassy in a late evening statement issued to sharply criticise the recent utterances of a senior US official, said “China and India have the ability to resolve their border disputes bilaterally” and so “don’t accept countries outside the region pointing fingers, let alone meddling or making instigation, which will only endanger the regional peace and stability”.

China also claimed had “never provoked it a

war or conflict over the past 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949” and had “always insisted on resolving territorial and maritime disputes with neighboring countries through consultations and negotiations on the basis of respecting historical facts, to maintain regional peace and stability”.

This comes amid fresh Sino-Indian military tensions in the Ladakh sector which has seen thousands of troops deployed on both sides there in full battlepreparedness.

Reiterating, meanwhile, that the “solution (to the current situation in the Ladakh sector) has to be found in the domain of diplomacy”, Jaishankar also made it clear that “what happens at the border will impact the (SinoIndian) relationship”.

Asserting that it was “not the easiest of times” in the Sino-Indian relationship, Jaishankar said it was “vital” for both countries to accommodate each other.

The EAM made the comments in a discussion to mark the launch of his book— The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World”.

●