India and China today returned to the negotiating table to resolve the military stand-off in Eastern Ladakh, after their failure to make headway at the 13th round of military-level talks in October to proceed further with the disengagement process.
The 23rd meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination (WMCC) on India-China Border Affairs was held this afternoon.
The Indian delegation was led by Naveen Srivastava, Additional Secretary (East Asia) in the Ministry of External Affairs while the Director-General of the Boundary & Oceanic Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the Chinese delegation, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
The two sides recalled the agreement between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi during their meeting in September in Dushanbe that military and diplomatic officials of the two sides should continue their discussions to resolve the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh.
Accordingly, the two sides had candid and in-depth discussions on the situation along the LAC in the Western Sector of India-China Border Areas and also reviewed the developments since the last meeting of the Senior Commanders of both sides which was held on 10 October.
In this regard, they agreed on the need to find an early resolution to the remaining issues along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh while fully abiding by bilateral agreements and protocols so as to restore peace and tranquility. The two sides also agreed that both sides should in the interim also continue to ensure a stable ground situation and avoid any untoward incident.
It was agreed that both sides should hold the next (14th) round of the Senior Commanders’ meeting at an early date to achieve the objective of complete disengagement from all the friction points along the LAC in the Western Sector in accordance with the existing bilateral agreements and protocols.
At the 13th meeting of the senior commanders, India and China had failed to break the deadlock over disengagement from Hot Springs and de-escalation from other friction points, including Depsang.