S. Jaishankar was interacting with Indian diaspora in Australia, the first stop in his two-nation tour; on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, he said India is making efforts to bring diplomacy back to forefront
India and China have made “some progress” in disengagement, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Sunday, describing it as a “welcome” move which opens up the possibility that other steps could happen.
His comment comes days after Indian and Chinese troops completed disengagement at two friction points in Demchok and Depsang Plains in eastern Ladakh. The Indian Army commenced verification patrolling at Depsang, while patrolling at Demchok started on Friday.
‘A welcome step’
“In terms of India and China, yes, we have made some progress. You know, our relations were very, very disturbed. We have made some progress in what we call disengagement, which is when troops were very close to each other, with the possibility that could lead to some untoward incident,” Mr. Jaishankar said while responding to a question during interaction with the Indian diaspora here.
“There are very large numbers of Chinese troops deployed along the Line of Actual Control who were not there before 2020. And we, in turn, have counterdeployed. There are other aspects of the relationship, which also got affected during this period. So clearly, we have to see after the disengagement, what is the direction we go. But we do think the disengagement is a welcome step. It opens up the possibility that other steps could happen,” he said.
He said that the expectation after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia last month was that “both the national security adviser and myself, we would meet our counterpart.”
On October 21, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in Delhi that an agreement had been finalised between India and China following negotiations over the past several weeks and that it would lead to a resolution of the issues that arose in 2020. The agreement was firmed up on patrolling and disengagement of troops along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, a breakthrough to end the over four-year standoff.
Ties between the two Asian giants nosedived following a fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.
Mr. Jaishankar, who arrived in the Australian city of Brisbane earlier in the day on the first leg of his two-nation tour, said that there are right now two conflicts, which are in everybody’s mind. “One is Ukraine. And one is what is happening in the Middle East. In different ways, we are trying to do something in both,” he said while replying to another question.
On the Ukraine-Russia conflict, he said that India is making efforts to bring diplomacy back to the forefront, with the Prime Minister personally involved in meetings with leaders of the two countries.
On West Asia, he said it is very different. “At the moment, the effort is more to prevent the conflict from spreading. And here, one of the gaps is the inability of Iran and Israel to talk to each other directly. So different countries are trying to see if they can… bridge that gap. We happen to be one of them,” he said, without giving details.