China says disengagement of troops going on 'smoothly' in eastern Ladakh

Beijing: China has said that the disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh by the Chinese and Indian armies is going on "smoothly" following a recent agreement between the two nations.

On October 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed the agreement on patrolling and disengagement along the LAC in eastern Ladakh during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan in Russia.

“In accordance with the resolutions that China and India reached recently on issues concerning the border area, the Chinese and Indian frontier troops are engaged in relevant work, which is going smoothly at the moment," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a media briefing on Friday.

India announced the agreement to pull back troops from the friction points on October 21 and China confirmed a day later saying the two sides have reached “resolutions on relevant matters” and Beijing will work with New Delhi to implement these resolutions.

Following the agreement, the two countries have begun troop disengagement at the two friction points at Demchok and Depsang Plains in eastern Ladakh and this process is likely to be completed by October 28-29, Indian Army sources said on Friday.

The agreement was arrived at only for these two friction points, and "talks are still underway" for other areas, they said.

The sources said that patrolling will begin at these points once the disengagement that began two days back is completed and both sides will move their respective troops and dismantle temporary structures.

Eventually, they added, the areas and patrolling status are expected to be moved back to the pre-April 2020 level.

The 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.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on October 21 said in New Delhi that the agreement was finalised following negotiations over the past several weeks and that it would lead to a resolution of the issues that arose in 2020.