Border talks in Sept, to precede Modi-Xi meet

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 27

India and China plan to hold talks on the border issue in mid-September to create a conducive ground for the second informal summit between PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in October. 

The border talks will supplement dialogue on other issues to be held next month when External Affairs 

Minister S Jaishankar visits Beijing. The interminable talks on the border have been suffused with hope after PM Modi and Xi met on the margins of G-20 summit in Osaka last month and directed their special representatives on the border issue to accelerate dialogue to achieve tangible progress.  

Although China has delivered a snub of sorts to India after it turned down PM Modi’s proposal to hold the informal summit in Varanasi on grounds that the length of the runway was too short to accommodate the Presidential plane, sources said the main reason may have been Japan’s active role in re-developing the city.

The border talks will be held between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi with both sides planning to examine the possibility of moving the talks forward to a conversation on demarcation of the border, said to be a prelude to a final settlement.

Sources said in the past, China has settled outstanding boundary issues with other countries by first signing a border agreement.

China has settled border issues with 12 neighbours, except Bhutan and India.