NEW DELHI, June 24: China has distanced itself from a widely circulated view in India that it has recognized the disputed Himalayan state of Sikkim as part of India, news reports from Beijing said on Tuesday.

Chinese foreign ministry Kong Quan was quoted in the Indian media as saying at a briefing on Monday that Sikkim is “an enduring issue left over from history” which could not be resolved overnight.

“We have to respect history. We have to take into consideration realistic factors,” Mr Kong said at his scheduled biweekly briefing attended by Indian journalists covering Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to China.

In an agreement on border trade, India and China had on Monday decided to open trade routes through Sikkim and Tibet. The Indian media evidently interpreted this as recognition by China that Sikkim is a part of India.

The agreement and a joint declaration was to be issued on Tuesday.

The Indian media had reported that the Indian government has, in these documents, acknowledged Tibetan Autonomous Region as a part of the People’s Republic of China. This is essentially not new since New Delhi has been describing Tibet as an autonomous region of China since at least 1988.

Mr Kong said credit should be given to Mr Vajpayee and his Chinese counterpart Mr Wen Jiabao for the formulation on Tibet.

India has admitted that Tibetan Autonomous Region is an ‘inalienable’ part of China, he added.

China’s refusal to concede India’s sovereignty over Sikkim has been one of the major thorns in the relations between the two nations.