Kuala Lumpur. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said on Wednesday that normalcy in bilateral relations with China can be achieved only on the basis of conventional deployment of troops and this will be the pre-condition for taking forward relations with Beijing. Responding to a question on the current state of India’s relations with China during his interaction with the Indian diaspora in the Malaysian capital, Jaishankar said, “My first duty towards Indians is to protect the border and I will never compromise in this regard.” can’t.”
He said that every country “wants good relations with its neighbours. Who doesn’t want that? But every relationship has to be established on some basis.” Jaishankar said, “We are still in talks with China. I talk to my counterpart. We keep meeting from time to time. “Our military commanders talk to each other, but our position is very clear that there was an agreement between us.”
The Foreign Minister further said, “There is the Line of Actual Control (LAC). We have a tradition of not bringing troops to that line. The military bases of both of us are located at some distance, which is our traditional place of deployment. “And we want that normalcy.” He said that the normal situation in terms of army deployment on the border will become the basis for taking forward relations with China. He said that in the case of China, relations have been difficult for several reasons, including the fact that there is a border dispute between the two sides.
Jaishankar said, “But despite the border dispute for many years, we actually built important relations because we agreed that when we negotiate the border dispute, we will both agree that we will not deploy a large number of troops.” Will not deploy on the border. And we will never have a situation where there is violence and bloodshed.”
He said that this consensus began in the late 1980s and was reflected in several agreements. He said, “Now unfortunately, border agreements were broken in 2020, the reasons for which are still not clear to us. “In fact, there was violence and bloodshed on the border.” Relations between India and China became tense after the deadly clash in Galwan Valley in June 2020.
Jaishankar said that India’s position in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been that a solution cannot be found on the battlefield and India wants to find a way to end this conflict. Responding to a question on India’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Jaishankar said that “there is no winner of the conflict”. “We have taken the position from the beginning that you will not find a solution to this conflict on the battlefield,” he said.
Referring to the attack by the Palestinian terrorist group in southern Israel, Jaishankar said that what happened on October 7 was terrorism. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip attacked Israel by land, sea and air routes, killing at least 1,200 Israeli civilians and taking 230 others hostage. After this attack, Israel retaliated on Gaza Strip.
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Tags: China, Galwan Valley, S Jaishankar
FIRST PUBLISHED: March 27, 2024, 22:35 IST