India, China Cite Progress In Border Dispute Talks

Last updated on: January 17, 2012 at 1:06 pm by

India, China Cite Progress In Border Dispute Talks 2012-01-17T13:06:53-07:00

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India and China said Tuesday they would work toward peacefully resolving their disputed Himalayan border while improving management of the region by establishing a committee.

The sides agreed to look into conducting military and information exchanges along the mountainous border, which is unresolved despite 15 rounds of talks and a brief but bloody war in 1962.

A joint statement, released after two days of meetings in New Delhi, says that holding to the 1993 Line of Actual Control would be “significant for enhancing mutual trust and security” while the final boundary is determined.

The planned secretarial-level joint committee, meanwhile, would meet once or twice a year to improve cooperation, though it would not be involved in drawing the final boundary, the statement said. Officials from both sides declined to speak with reporters after the talks.

The border dispute centers on two regions now controlled by India — Arunachal Pradesh in the far east, and Aksai Chin located within the region of Kashmir that is also disputed with Pakistan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that India and China had been holding a “practical dialogue” on the border issue since 2003, and “the year 2012 will become a year of cooperation and development,” according to Press Trust of India.

This week’s talks, involving India’s National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo, had been delayed from November. Though no reason for the delay was given at the time, local newspapers had blamed tension following India’s refusal to cancel an international Buddhist conference being attended by the Dalai Lama.

China reviles the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and accuses him of pushing for independence for Tibet, which it insists is Chinese territory.

The Tibetan issue has been a source of tension between China and India since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule. He and the Tibetan government-in-exile have since been based in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala.

Hundreds of Tibetans protested the talks in New Delhi, chanting slogans, burning an effigy of the Chinese official and demanding China end the “illegal occupation” of their homeland.

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