NEW DELHI, Sept 25: Asian giants India and China enter the toughest leg of their attempts to settle a decades-old border row as envoys of the two countries hold talks this week to draw up a plan to mark their large frontier. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this month and agreed to pursue a reasonable solution to the dispute with a greater urgency.
“The two sides feel that they have an opportunity to pursue a pragmatic solution based on the political parameters agreed between them,” an Indian foreign ministry official said ahead of the talks which start on Monday.
“The talks in Beijing between special representatives of the two sides will take this process forward.”
Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo will meet for two days.
Relations between the world’s two most populous nations, who fought a brief but brutal border war in 1962, have greatly improved, largely due to burgeoning economic ties. But the border dispute remains a sticking point.
The neighbours share a 3,500-km border, largely along the icy Himalayan mountains. Both sides claim the other is occupying parts of its territory.
New Delhi disputes Beijing’s rule over 38,000 sq km (15,000 square miles) of barren, icy and uninhabited land on the Tibetan plateau, which China seized from India in the 1962 war.
China claims 90,000 square km of territory ruled by India in the eastern part of the border, mostly in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Earlier this year, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited India, the two countries agreed on an 11-point roadmap to settle the border row politically, rather than technically, keeping in mind the growing warmth between them.
This, some analysts say, is an attempt towards accepting the status quo and hammering out a swap where the Chinese give up claims in the east in return for Indian recognition of Chinese sovereignty in the strategic Aksai Chin area in the west.
—Reuters