|
Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat said the situation was tense
at the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, in eastern
Ladakh, where thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are locked
in a months-long confrontation.
"We will not accept any shifting of the Line of Actual Control,"
Rawat said in an online address.
"In the overall security calculus, border confrontations,
transgressions and unprovoked tactical military actions
spiralling into a larger conflict cannot therefore be
discounted," he said.
Brutal hand-to-hand combat in June left 20 Indian and an
undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead, escalating tensions
and triggering large deployments on the remote, desolate border
area.
Both sides have since attempted to ease the situation through
diplomatic and military channels, but have made little headway,
leaving soldiers facing-off in sub-zero temperatures in Ladakh's
snow deserts.
Senior Indian and Chinese commanders were meeting on Friday in
Ladakh, the eight round of talks between the military
leaderships since the crisis began, officials in New Delhi said.
The talks would likely include discussions on a Chinese proposal
to pull some troops back from a contested area on the northern
bank of Pangong Tso lake, where soldiers were separated by a few
hundred metres, according to an Indian official.
Infantry troops, backed by artillery and armoured vehicles, are
also facing off on the southern bank of the lake, where China
has been pushing India to pull back, the official said.
(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal, Editing by William Maclean)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
