Peace on LAC must to mend ties: Jaishankar

Sutirtho Patranobis, Shishir Gupta and Rezaul H Laskar

BEIJING/NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar has told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that bilateral ties can only be repaired by maintaining peace and tranquillity in border areas and completing the disengagement of frontline troops at all friction points on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Jaishankar’s blunt message was conveyed to Wang during a 75-minute phone conversation on Thursday — the first formal contact between the two ministers since they met on the margins of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Moscow last September.

The continuing differences between the two sides were evident in the Chinese foreign ministry’s readout of the conversation, which quoted Wang as saying that the boundary dispute is “an objective fact” but it wasn’t the “whole of China-India relations” and should be put in a “proper place in the overall bilateral relations”.

This was perceived as the Chinese side’s keenness to take forward ties in other areas such as trade while setting aside the standoff.

The two ministers also agreed to establish a hotline to facilitate timely communications and exchange of views.

The conversation came days after India and China pulled back frontline troops from strategic heights around Pangong Lake along with armoured vehicles and artillery last week, and Jaishankar said it is necessary for the two sides to “quickly resolve the remaining issues along the LAC in eastern Ladakh”.