LAC row: Senior military commanders of India, China to meet on Monday

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 20

After having failed to break the deadlock over military deployment along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, senior Military commanders of India and China have been yet again tasked to meet again on Monday, September 21.

Lt General-level officers of the two sides will meet, said sources on Sunday. It will be the sixth such meeting since June 6 and it starts at 9 am at the Chinese garrison of Moldo located opposite Chushul on the Indian side. It is also close to the recent flare when bullet shots were fired on Sept 7.

Sources confirmed the Lt General-level meeting is planned to implement on ground the discussions which have taken place in Moscow on September 4 and September 10, respectively. Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar had met their respective counterparts at these two meetings. A five-point de-escalation programme was also released.

The two sides will literally, start from scratch as previous efforts of five meetings at the Lt General-Level between June 6 and August 2 ended in failure. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China, backtracked on agreements to disengage and de-escalate from along the LAC.

In these seven weeks, since August 2, dynamics have changed on multiple counts. Firstly, bullets have been fired on September 7, the first time in Ladakh since November 1962. Secondly, there are fresh areas of confrontation like the 70-km stretch along the southern part of the Pangong Tso, a 135-km glacial-melt lake. Thirdly, a lack of trust has crept in. The Indian Army will opt for a ‘wait and watch’ while assessing PLA’s motives.

There are other flash points along the 826 km LAC in Ladakh. Notably at the Depsang plains, North bank of Pangong Tso and the patrolling point PP 17-A (Gogra).

Apart from the meetings of Lt General officers, on August 8, Major General-level meeting was conducted to reduce tensions at the Depsang plains, to reduce troop mobilisation and war-waging equipment on both sides of the 900 sq km Depsang plains.

The talks revolved around two issues — restoring patrol rights in ‘grey zone’ areas, where the perception of the LAC varies, and arriving at some semblance of understanding as to what are each other’s perceptions of the LAC and how these are to be ‘respected’ by troops on the ground.