AHEAD OF Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu’s visit to New Delhi this week for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ meeting, India and China held the 18th round of military talks on Sunday to discuss legacy friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and ways to overcome the trust deficit between the two militaries. The Corps Commander-level talks at Chushul on the Indian side, started at 10 am and were underway till evening. The Indian delegation was led by 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen Rashim Bali. Defence sources said the talks will set the stage for the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting this week. “Also, the talks will broadly discuss ways to overcome trust issues between the two sides to avoid any untoward incident at the tactical level and to discuss resolution of issues, if any, at the level of battalion commander and brigade commander,” said a source. Sources said pending issues along the LAC such as Depsang Plains and Demchok will also feature in the discussions.The last military talks between India and China took place in December last year, but there was no forward movement, either on resolution of legacy issues or on an overall de-escalation in eastern Ladakh. Prior to that, in September last year, both sides pulled back troops to disengage from Patrolling Point-15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area of Eastern Ladakh, which marked a step forward in the military standoff between the two sides which began in May 2020. Friction points such as Galwan Valley, north and south banks of Pangong Tso and the Gogra-Hot Springs area have seen some resolution in the last three years with the creation of buffer zones. As per sources, while the broad summer strategy in eastern Ladakh is already being implemented, it will be further refined based on the outcome of this meet and the SCO meet later this week.
