As stalemate continues at the tense Line of Actual Control(LAC) in Ladakh, senior military commanders will hold the seventh round of talks on October 12. Besides reviewing the current situation, the two Corps Commanders will also discuss ways to speed up disengagement leading to ultimate de-escalation.
The sixth round of military level talks since the stand-offs started in early May was held on September 21. For the first time, both the sides then issued a joint statement in which they agreed to “stop sending more troops to the frontline” and “refrain from unilaterally changing the situation on the ground.”
The two delegations also agreed to hold the seventh round of commander-level talks “as soon as possible, take practical measures to properly solve problems on the ground, and jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in the border area.”
As of now more than one lakh soldiers from both the sides are deployed at the 1,700 km long LAC in Ladakh. Moreover, the two countries have positioned heavy weapons and long range guns besides missiles closer to the border. Also, China has shifted more than 150 aircraft to the airbases in the Tibet region. It forced India also to take countermeasures and most of its frontline jets including SU-30, Rafales, Jaguars and MIG-29s are now operating from forward airbases all along the LAC stretching from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east.
On the forthcoming talks, sources said here on Sunday, the Indian side will be led by Lehn based 14 Crops chief Lt General Harinder Singh while the other side will be headed Major General Liu Lin. Singh is scheduled to take over as the commandant of the Indian Military Academy(IMA) and will be replaced by Lt General PGK Menon in mid-October.
Menon was present in the last round along with senior officers of the ministry of external affairs and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police(ITBP). The October 12 round will also see a joint team of military and external affairs discussing modalities to defuse tension, they said.
Incidentally, the two sides had held the diplomatic level parleys under the aegis of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Co-ordination(WMCC). The Indian delegation in the virtual meeting was headed by Naveen Srivastava.
As regards the position on the ground, additional troops of India and China are deployed at various locations on the North and South banks of the Pangong Tso(lake)in Eastern Ladakh. These two points are the most sensitive at present since the Indian army preempted a Chinese aggressive move to dominate the hilltops in the region.
However, relative calm now prevailed on the border since two hour talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow on September 10. Both the ministers rolled out a mutually agreed five-point action plan to bring peace and tranquility to the LAC. Indian Air Force chief Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria had last week described the situation as “not war, not peace.”