India to take tough stand on PLA incursions

New Delhi: India is expected to take a hard position on incursions and stalling of border infrastructure work by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops at the high-level meeting in Eastern Ladakh on Saturday. However, an immediate resolution to the month-long standoff is not expected as the two sides will look at reaching a “broad understanding” of the situation.The meeting at the Lt General-level could be the first in a series before de-escalation is achieved along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where thousands of troops from both sides have amassed after the PLA intrusion at four positions in Galwan, Gogra and Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh.Meanwhile, a joint secretary- level dialogue was held between the two foreign ministries on Friday. ET was the first to report that both sides will launch joint secretary- level dialogue parallelly with talks between two armies. Naveen Srivastava, joint secretary (East Asia) MEA and Wu Jianghao, director general in the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs held a meeting through videoconferencing. The two sides reviewed the state of bilateral relations including the current developments. “In this context, they recalled the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries that peaceful, stable and balanced relations between India and China will be a positive factor for stability in the current global situation,” said the MEA statement. The two sides also exchanged views on the challenge posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and cooperation in various multilateral forums.The Indian side has four hard lines that it is unlikely to budge from – withdrawal of Chinese troops from Indian territory, pulling back of PLA forces that have been deployed forward along the LAC, uninterrupted border works in Galwan and an assurance that there would be no more violence of the kind that left scores of soldiers injured last month.Army commanders who have dealt with similar situations in the past believe that Saturday’s meeting may not yield immediate results and it would require more deliberations at a higher level.76224838"Our negotiating stance will be to restore status quo ante and for the PLA to go back. This will not get decided immediately and in a hurry. It will require some very detailed negotiations and more efforts by both sides," said Lt Gen DS Hooda (retd), who dealt with standoffs in Eastern Ladakh as the former Northern Army Commander.India has the options to apply pressure on the ground and has built up adequate forces to open up fronts by moving to other contested places on the LAC but that would be construed as an escalation and may not be the first option.Former 15 Corps Commander, Lt Gen Ata Hasnain (retd) too felt that the Saturday meeting cannot be expected to resolve the ground situation. “We have had five to six meetings, some at the two star level, and to expect this one will resolve things would be a bit far-fetched. There will be an attempt to have a broader understanding and I anticipate that this will require more than one meeting to resolve," he said.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2UhcqXf