Stage set for India-China talks! Corps Commanders to meet at Indian side of Chusul Moldo

The 16^th round of Corps Commander-level talks will start early Sunday morning (July 17, 2022) at around 9.30 am on the Indian side at Chusul Moldo meeting point. The Indian side will be led by the Leh-based 14Corps commander Lt-General Anindya Sengupta and the Chinese side will be led by South Xinjiang Military District chief Major General Yang Lin.

According to sources the 16^th round of talks between the two sides is confirmed to take place on Sunday.

Focus of the Talks

According to sources during the talks India side is going to press the Chinese side for disengagement of the PLA troops from the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh.

It will also seek early resolution of issues related to Depsang Bulge and Demchok. Efforts during the talks will be for defusing the more than two years long standoff between the Indian and Chinese troops at the strategically located Depsang plains.

What to expect?

During the 15^th round of talks in March between the two sides, there was no breakthrough. However since then external affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar has had meetings with his counterpart Wang Yi a couple of times. Recently, as has been reported in Financial Express Online, he met him on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting in Bali.

And in his discussions with him, stressed on an early resolution of the ongoing confrontation in eastern Ladakh as that is critical to the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Despite the discussion, China continues its belligerence by building new military infrastructure – including bunkers for its troops, helipads, roads and bridges, gun and missile positions and all this is along the Line of Actual Control – which is stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.

As reported earlier, in this round of talks, India is hopeful of some progress in completing the troop disengagement at Patrolling Point-15 (PP-15) in the Hot Springs-Gogra-Kongka La area which was stalled earlier.

There are no signs of China even attempting to disengage from strategic points like Depsang and the Charding Ninglung Nallah (CNN) track junction at Demchok.