External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday acknowledged “some progress” made by India and China in the disengagement process adding that it has opened up the possibility of “other steps” to be taken by the two sides.
“In terms of India and China, yes, we have made some progress. You know, our relations were very, very disturbed for reasons all of you know. We have made some progress in what we call disengagement, which is when troops were very close to each other, with the possibility that could lead to some untoward incident,” Jaishankar said while responding to a question during an interaction with the Indian diaspora in Brisbane, Australia.
He added, “There are very large numbers of Chinese troops deployed along the Line of Actual Control who were not there before 2020. And we, in turn, have counter-deployed. There are other aspects of the relationship, which also got affected during this period. So clearly, we have to see after the disengagement, what is the direction we go. But we do think the disengagement is a welcome step. It opens up the possibility that other steps could happen.”
Last month, India declared that it had reached an agreement with China to disengage troops along the Line of Actual Control, marking a major breakthrough in the border issue that started in 2020.
The foreign minister further said that the expectation after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia last month was that “both the national security advisor and myself, we would meet our counterpart. So that’s where things are”.
With inputs from PTI
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