India’s top military adviser said New Delhi will not accept any shifting of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the country’s border with China as new talks to resolve the tense ongoing dispute over the region began with Beijing.
The probability of a full-scale conflict with China on the de facto border in the western Himalayas is currently low, Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat said during a seminar of the National Defense College on Friday. However, he could not rule out border confrontations and unprovoked tactical military actions “spiraling into a larger conflict.”
“The situation along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh remains tense and the People’s Liberation Army is facing unanticipated consequences for its misadventure in Ladakh because of firm and strong responses by the Indian forces,” Rawat said.
The comments came on the same day Indian and Chinese corps commanders met for the eighth round of talks in Eastern Ladakh. The two sides are trying to find a solution to the border stand-off, which has continued for seven months. Hand-to-hand combat which broke out between the neighboring forces on June 15 in the Galwan Valley led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers.
Senior commanders from India and China were expected to discuss a Chinese proposal to pull some troops back from a contested area on the northern bank of Pangong Tso lake, where only a few hundred meters separate soldiers, Reuters quoted an Indian official as saying.
Rawat warned on Friday that the “status quo has to be restored,” adding that India will not accept any shifting of the LAC. India’s military had also claimed earlier that the country’s forces had outmaneuvered the Chinese in August to occupy strategic heights in the area.
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