Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday said that talks between New Delhi and Beijing to resolve the border standoff that started between the two nations in May 2020 have not been halted and the next meeting over the issue would be held soon.
"India-China border talks not halted, meeting will be held soon," the minister told reporters in New Delhi.
Notably, the last meeting between military commanders of India and China took place in April.
Jaishankar added that troops of both countries had successfully de-escalated from multiple friction points in eastern Ladakh following several rounds of diplomatic and military level talks in the past three years.
"We have made progress on key tension points in the last three years," Jaishankar noted, emphasizing that efforts to find a solution to the dispute were ongoing.
The remarks of India's top diplomat come at a time when New Delhi has repeatedly stated that normalcy in frontier regions is a prerequisite to having warm relations with China.
Earlier this year, Jaishankar described the situation on the border as fragile.
Last month, India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval told China's reappointed Foreign Minister Wang Yi that the military face-off between the two sides in Ladakh has "eroded strategic trust" between New Delhi and Beijing.
State of India-China Ties at Present
The border stand-off between India and China erupted in May 2020. The following month, it turned much more bitter, with troops of the neighboring sovereign states, engaged in a massive brawl in the Galwan Valley, resulting in the deaths of 20 Indian and 4 Chinese soldiers.
This led the two nations to amass nearly 50,000 troops each in eastern Ladakh, in addition to deploying tanks, howitzers, and other weapons platforms there.
For months, Indian and Chinese troops remained in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation. But eventually, military and diplomatic talks bore fruit as disengagement and de-escalation took place from Pangong Tso Lake, Galwan Valley, Hot Springs, and Gogra areas.
Despite success on certain friction points, the two nations have failed to reduce tensions in areas like Depsang, Daulet Beg Oldi, and Demchok, where thousands of troops are still positioned.