One problem less on border: Jaishankar on LAC pullback

The withdrawal of Indian and Chinese troops from Patrolling Point 15 in eastern Ladakh meant “one problem less on the border”, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday. His comments came at a time when speculation continued over the possibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting the communist country’s President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan.

“I do not think I will say anything new today, except I would recognize that we have had disengagement at PP-15 (Patrolling Point 15),” Jaishankar said at a joint news conference with French foreign minister Catherine Colonna in the national capital.

He was responding to a query on China’s aggression along its Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India.

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“The disengagement as I understand was completed. That is one problem less on the border,” he said.

Jaishankar acknowledged the latest progress in the protracted negotiation between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), but also sought to underline that the stand-off—which lasted for over two years—along the LAC, the de facto boundary between the two nations, was not over yet.

The PLA continued to block the Indian Army’s access to Patrol Points 10, 11, 12, 12A and 13 by deploying troops in Depsang Bulge, well inside the territory of India, along the country’s LAC with China. A similar face-off also continued in Demchok on the LAC.

The two sides, however, completed withdrawal of troops from Gogra-Hotsprings area (PP15) between September 8 and 12. The negotiations to resolve the stand-off, which started in April-May 2020, had earlier resulted in mutual withdrawal of troops from three other face-off points along the LAC: from Galwan Valley in June 2020, from northern bank of Pangong Tso in February 2021 and from Gogra Post (PP-17A) in August 2021.

The recent disengagement of troops by India and China from PP15 came ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

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Prime minister Modi will reach the ancient silk road city in the central Asian nation on Thursday to take part in the summit. The Chinese President has already reached the city.

Speculations are rife about the possibility of the two leaders holding a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. Neither New Delhi, nor Beijing, however, confirmed or ruled out the possibility of a bilateral meeting.

Sources in New Delhi, so far, confirmed that Modi would hold bilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the host of the summit, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.