New Delhi and Beijing had agreed that the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for resolving the territorial dispute would be followed by a framework for boundary settlement.
New Delhi: Though New Delhi and Beijing are yet to work out the settlement framework that, according to the 2005 bilateral agreement, should precede delineation and demarcation of the boundary between the two neighbouring nations, India and China on Tuesday discussed ways to make progress on delimitation.
As the special representatives of the two governments held the 25th round of boundary negotiations in Beijing on Tuesday, the Embassy of India in the capital of China stated that the ways to make progress on “boundary delimitation” had been discussed.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi noted that the special representatives – National Security Advisor Ajit Doval of India and Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China – had agreed to continue “seeking a political settlement of the boundary question” in the context of the “overall and long-term interests” of the two nations.
The two sides “engaged in in-depth discussions on advancing border demarcation negotiations, strengthening border control, improving mechanisms, and promoting cross-border cooperation,” according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of the government of China.
New Delhi and Beijing had agreed that the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for resolving the territorial dispute would be followed by a framework for boundary settlement.
They had agreed that the “framework would provide the basis for the delineation and demarcation of the India-China boundary to be subsequently undertaken by civil and military officials and surveyors of the two sides.”
Though the two sides could not work out a framework in the past two decades, Doval and Wang, according to the readout issued by the Chinese MOFA, discussed “advancing border demarcation” on Tuesday. “They discussed ways to further expand bilateral cooperation, maintain stability and ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas, and make progress on boundary delimitation, while sustaining the ongoing work on transboundary cooperation,” the Embassy of India in Beijing posted on X.
The discussion on the boundary delimitation on Tuesday signalled that India and China were ready to revisit the agreed sequencing of the process to resolve the protracted territorial disputes between the two neighbouring countries.
The Indian MEA stated in New Delhi that the special representatives of the two governments, under the strategic guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, had “a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the boundary question” in “a constructive and forward-looking spirit”.