India: Against the backdrop of China’s recent incursion in Ladakh, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Saturday said the two countries are working on a new Border Defence Cooperation Agreement.
Mr. Khurshid, just back from his visit to Beijing, said the two sides had underlined that the incidents like the recent incursion in Daulat Beg Oldi should not happen and agreed that this issue should not come in way of improving ties.
Mr. Khurshid told reporters here that special representatives of India and China will meet in a couple of months to discuss in detail the issues related to boundary. “China has proposed sometime back a proposal for Border Defence Cooperation Agreement… We have also given our suggestions,” he said.
On the recent incursion of 19 km into India’s territory by Chinese troops, he said, “we did not do any post-mortem or aportion blame.” He expressed satisfaction that the mechanisms in place worked well to resolve the stand off.
On the contentious issues which could be raised during the visit of Chinese premier Li Keqiang, Mr. Khurshid said, “there are no prickly issues, issues of major differences which can be seen as obstacles.” He said MoUs would be signed during the Chinese premier’s visit and some during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s subsequent visit to Beijing later this year.
“This is for the first time since 1954 that a two way visit by the two Prime Ministers of the two countries in the same year,” he said.
