India and China have reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements which would enable the return of the situation before May 2020, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday. "What Foreign Secretary has said is what I can also say, that we reached an agreement on patrolling and with that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020," he said during an interaction at the NDTV World Summit.
"We can say that the disengagement process with China has been completed. There are areas which for various reasons after 2020...because they had blocked us so we had blocked them. So what has happened is we have reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling."
Earlier today, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced that New Delhi had arrived at an agreement with China on patrolling in remaining friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. He indicated that the agreement would lead to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in 2020.
The agreement reportedly focuses on patrolling in the Depsang and Demchok areas. "Over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other in a variety of forums," the foreign secretary said at a media briefing.
"As a result of these discussions, agreement has been arrived at patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020," he said.
It remains unclear whether the agreement will restore patrolling rights that were in place before the May 2020 standoff, which has yet to be fully resolved despite previous disengagements at several friction points.
Relations between India and China deteriorated significantly after the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, the deadliest military confrontation between the two countries in decades. Since then, India has maintained that normalising bilateral ties depends on achieving peace and stability along the border areas.
India has repeatedly urged the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to disengage from the Depsang and Demchok areas, which have remained contentious.
Last month, Jaishankar said that approximately 75% of the "disengagement problems" with China had been resolved but highlighted concerns over the increasing militarization along the frontier. Speaking at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, he remarked, "Now those negotiations are going on. We made some progress. I would say roughly you can say about 75 per cent of the disengagement problems are sorted out... We still have some things to do."