Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said “patrolling and grazing in traditional areas” was a part of the consensus agreement reached between India and China to resolve the four-year long crisis in eastern Ladakh.
"The consensus achieved includes patrolling and grazing (cattle) in the traditional areas. This is the power of engaging in continuous dialogue because sooner or later, solutions will emerge," Singh said, delivering a talk at a military conference titled Chanakya Defence Dialogue here.
"India and China have been involved in talks both at military and diplomatic levels to resolve differences in certain areas along the Line of Actual Control. Pursuant to the talks, a broad consensus has been achieved to restore the ground situation based on the principle of equal and mutual security," he added.
The defence minister’s comments come three days after New Delhi and Beijing announced a breakthrough to overcome the impasse at Depsang and Demchok areas, where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops blocked Indian soldiers' access to several patrolling points.
A day after the announcement, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Upendra Dwivedi said the Indian Army would first restore the trust between the troops from two sides and avoid venturing into the buffer zones.
However, neither the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs, nor the Indian Army shared any details on up to what point the troops could go for patrolling.
While Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said New Delhi and Beijing went back to “where the situation was in 2020”, Gen Dwivedi said the soldiers would not go into the buffer zones. He also maintained that the consensus on patrolling is only the first step towards restoring the LAC status quo that existed before April 2020.
Once the patrolling starts, a small group of soldiers may be despatched to the areas near the disputed boundary. But with the winter likely to set in the next few weeks, the patrolling activities will stop and resume only in April-May 2025 when the snow melts.
In his talk, Singh also touched on the impact of defence and security sectors on the economy of a country. “We need to critically reassess why defence is not given prominence in discourses around economic development,” he said.