NEW DELHI, March 27 (Agencies): India said ties with China could not be normal until their troops pulled back from each other on the disputed border, but Beijing struck a conciliatory note during a meeting of their foreign ministers in New Delhi on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both nations have deployed thousands of troops on the high-altitude border since hand-to-hand fights killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers northern Himalayan region of Ladakh in June 2020. Talks between senior military officers have made little progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was very honest in my discussions with the Chinese foreign minister, especially in conveying our national sentiments,” India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told a news briefing after his three-hour meeting with Wang Yi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The frictions and tensions that arise from China’s deployments since April 2020 cannot be reconciled with a normal relationship between the two neighbours.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement, Wang said China and India should work together to promote peace and stability around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The two sides should … put the differences on the boundary issue in an appropriate position in bilateral relations, and adhere to the correct development direction of bilateral relations,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“China does not pursue the so-called “unipolar Asia” and respects India’s traditional role in the region. The whole world will pay attention when China and India work hand in hand.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaishankar, a former ambassador to Beijing, said it was at China’s request that India did not announce Wang’s trip before his arrival in the capital late on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wang met India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, who also pressed him for a de-escalation at the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not immediately clear if India offered to pull back its troops if China did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said Wang called for transitioning the border issue from a state of emergency response to normal management as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both agreed to speed up the resolution of remaining issues, properly manage the situation on the ground and avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wang and Jaishankar also discussed their nations’ approaches to tackling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Both of us agreed on the importance of an immediate ceasefire, as well as a return to diplomacy,” Jaishankar said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India and China each consider Russia a friend and have rejected Western calls for condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Russia calls a “special military operation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wang, who visited Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier this week, is set to fly to the Himalayan nation of Nepal later on Friday during a whirlwind tour of South Asia, where China is trying to strengthen its influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before his arrival, Wang drew a rebuke from India for remarks in Pakistan on disputed Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region each rules in part but claims in full, an issue on which China has generally backed its close ally, Pakistan.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI, March 27 (Agencies): India said ties with China could not be normal until their troops pulled back from each other on the disputed border, but Beijing struck a conciliatory note during a meeting of their foreign ministers in New Delhi on Friday. Both nations have deployed thousands of troops on the high-altitude border […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,81,84,396,2,82,342],"tags":[964,192,345,61,2473,2475,1632,2444,2474,977],"class_list":["post-4125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-china","category-india","category-latest","category-news","category-paksitan","category-politics","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-islamabad","tag-kabul","tag-kathmandu","tag-ladakh-standoff","tag-new-delhi","tag-oic-cfm-48","tag-sino-india","tag-wang-yi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}