External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday ruled out any role for a third party in India’s border dispute with China, saying the two neighbours have an issue and it is for them to find a way out. “We are not looking to other countries to sort out what is really an issue between India and China,” Jaishankar said while responding to a series of questions at a press conference in Tokyo.
Jaishankar, who is here to attend a Quad foreign ministerial meeting, also said that India’s relationship with China is not good and it’s not doing well. “We have a problem, or, I would say, an issue between India and China…I think it is for two of us to talk it over and to find a way,” he said.
“Obviously, other countries in the world would have an interest in the matter, because we are two big countries and the state of our relationship has an impact on the rest of the world. But we are not looking to other countries to sort out what is really an issue between us,” he said, recalling his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi twice this month.
Jaishankar and Wang met last week in the Laotian capital where they participated in the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). During their meeting, they agreed on the need to give strong guidance to complete the disengagement process following the military standoff in eastern Ladakh in May 2020.
India has been maintaining that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas. Jaishankar’s remarks came amid the dragging border row in eastern Ladakh that entered its fifth year in May. On July 4, Jaishankar and Wang met in the Kazakh capital city of Astana on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The Indian and Chinese militaries have been locked in a standoff since May 2020 and a full resolution of the border row has not yet been achieved though the two sides have disengaged from a number of friction points. The ties between the two countries 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 have so far held 21 rounds of Corps Commander-level talks to resolve the standoff. India has been pressing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to disengage from the Depsang and Demchok areas.
The two sides held the last round of high-level military talks in February. Though there was no indication of a breakthrough at the 21st round of talks, both sides agreed to maintain “peace and tranquillity” on the ground and continue the communication on the way ahead.