After his last meeting with Qin on March 2, Jaishankar had said bilateral relations were “abnormal” and both sides needed to address “real issues”. More recently, Jaishankar described the situation on the LAC as “very critical” as there are places where the deployment of Indian and Chinese troops is “quite dangerous”.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday used a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang to reiterate India’s position that the normalization of bilateral ties is linked to the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Resolve outstanding issues.
The two leaders met for more than an hour at a resort in the seaside village ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday. People familiar with the matter said Jaishankar used the meeting to push India’s position for an early resolution of the military standoff in the Ladakh sector of the LAC, which has entered its fourth year.
There was no official readout on the meeting from the Indian and Chinese sides, and Jaishankar summed up the discussions in a brief tweet. This was the second meeting this year between Jaishankar and Qin, who last met when the Chinese minister travelled to India in March to attend a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.
