After more than two years of a standoff following a deadly skirmish, Indian and Chinese forces will disengage at a disputed location along a remote western Himalayan border by Sept. 12 according to the Indian foreign ministry.
The pullback, which follows numerous rounds of negotiations between senior military officials, is a result of New Delhi’s and Beijing’s joint attempts to keep the tension between the two nuclear-armed Asian superpowers low following their 1962 border conflict.
The withdrawal, which was also confirmed by China, comes ahead of a meeting that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are anticipated to attend next week in Uzbekistan.
According to India’s foreign ministry, the process of removing Chinese and Indian troops from the Gogra-Hot Springs region of Ladakh in the western Himalayas started on Thursday and will be finished by early next week.
According to a statement from the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Arindam Bagchi, “the two parties have agreed to discontinue advance deployments in this area in a staged, coordinated, and confirmed manner, resulting in the repatriation of the forces of both sides to their respective zones.”
According to him, as part of the agreement, any temporary structures in the region that were erected by the military would also be taken down.
Although the latest agreement’s specifics have not been made public, it is expected that the two forces will put a buffer between their troops and cease patrolling the area.
Rakesh Sharma, a retired Indian lieutenant general who served in Ladakh, called this a “good move.” “Face to face scenario is no longer an issue.”
Similar buffer systems have been put in place in other regions of Ladakh where soldiers were stationed close together following a fatal encounter in June 2020 that claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese troops.
However, Sharma noted that at least one place adjacent to the Demchok area in Ladakh still has troops from both sides stationed nearby, something that might be brought up in future negotiations.
Sharma noted that a significant expansion of Chinese border infrastructure will also keep hundreds of Indian soldiers stationed near the frontier. This will take some time, he remarked.
Their forces traditionally followed long-standing norms to avoid using any guns along the de facto boundary known as the Line of Actual Control along the 3,800 km (2,360 mile) shared by India and China (LAC).
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