New Delhi: Corps Commanders of the Indian and Chinese armies met Monday for the first time after the Galwan Valley incident in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in violent clashes with Chinese troops.
XIV Corps Commander Lt General Harinder Singh and South Xinjiang Military District Commander Major General Liu Lin met at Moldo on the Chinese side of the border with Chushul.
The two commanders first met on June 06 to discuss a roadmap for de-escalation on the Line of Actual Control, but the circumstances have changed since the showdown in Galwan Valley.
China had been demanding a second round of meeting between the Corps Commanders for some time now, but India was waiting for action on agreements reached at the June 06 meeting. India wanted disengagement at Patrol Points 14, 15 and 17A in Galwan Valley and Hot Springs before a second meeting.
There is no word yet on what transpired at the meeting, but Army sources said the Indian side would continue to insist that troops return to April locations — before the start of the faceoff at multiple points along the LAC. Division Commanders have met at least eight times since the standoff began in early May.
The meeting took place in the backdrop of the escalating tension between the two sides after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15, the most serious cross-border confrontation in the last 45 years.
The Chinese soldiers used stones, nail-studded sticks, iron rods and clubs in carrying out brutal attacks on Indian soldiers after they protested the erection of a surveillance post by China on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in Galwan.
After the clashes, the two sides held at least three-rounds of Major General-level talks to explore ways to bring down tension between the two sides.
In a telephonic conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi past Wednesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called the clashes a “premeditated” action by Chinese PLA.
Following the incident, the government has given the armed forces “full freedom” to give a “befitting” response to any Chinese misadventure along the 3,500-km de-facto border.
The Army has sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border in the last one week. The IAF has also moved a sizable number of its frontline Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar, Mirage 2000 aircraft and Apache attack helicopters to several key air bases, including Leh and Srinagar, following the clashes.
The two armies were engaged in a standoff in Galwan and several other areas of eastern Ladakh since May 05 when their troops clashed on the banks of the Pangong Tso.
The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on May 05 and 06. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 09.
Prior to the clashes, both sides had been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it was necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.
