'Trying to Restore Trust': Army Chief on India-China Border Patrol Agreement

New Delhi: The Chief of Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi has reacted to the breakthrough border patrol agreement between India and China. The Indian Army Chief has said that through this agreement, India is trying to ‘restore trust’.

Indian Army Chief on India-China Border Patrol Agreement

"As far as we are concerned, we were looking at going back to status quo of April 2020, point number one. Thereafter, we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of Line of Actual Control (LAC) will not just stop there."

‘We Are Trying to Restore Trust’: Gen Upendra Dwivedi

"There are phases in normal management also. Let's say, I mean, It has been our stance from April 2020 itself when YK Joshi was the army commander and even today that has remained the same. As of now what has happened? We are trying to restore the trust.

How the trust will get restored? It will get restored once we are able to see each other and we are able to convince each other that look, the buffers zones which are there, which have been created, we are not treating and are here to reassure you. 

Petroleum gives you that kind of advantage. So that's what is something which is convincing and as it has shown interest, the other stages will also follow through. And as we restore the trust, the other stages will also follow through."

Breakthrough Agreement Over Border Patrolling between India-China

India on Monday announced it has reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, in a major breakthrough in ending the over four-year-long military standoff that paves the way for a likely meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia this week.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, at a media briefing on Modi's visit to Russia for the BRICS summit, said the agreement was firmed up following negotiations by the two sides over the last several weeks and that it will lead to a resolution of the issues that had arisen in 2020. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Indian and Chinese soldiers will be able to resume patrolling in the way they had been doing before the border face-off began and the disengagement process with China has been completed.

Prime Minister Modi and President Xi are likely to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan either Tuesday or Wednesday. It is understood that the agreement will facilitate patrolling in Depsang and Demchok areas as there were major unresolved issues in these two areas.

The ties between the two Asian giants nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades. The two sides disengaged from a number of friction points following a series of military and diplomatic talks in the last couple of years.

(Inputs from PTI)