India Asks China To Disengage At Gogra-Hot Springs, Restoration Of Patrolling At Depsang In Military Talks

Apr 10, 2021

NEW DELHI: India on Friday once again asked China to complete the stalled troop disengagement at Gogra, Hot Springs and Demchok, stop blocking Indian patrols in Depsang Plains and adhere to laid down protocols in order to de-escalate the year-long heighted border tensions in eastern Ladakh.

There was no official word on the outcome of the 11thround of corps commander-level talks, led by 14 Corps commander Lt-General P G K Menon and South Xinjiang Military District chief Major General Liu Lin, on the Indian side of the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point.

The dialogue, which included additional secretary (East Asia) Naveen Srivastava from the external affairs ministry, began at 10.30 am at Chushul and was underway till late in the night, said officials.

The fresh military round, around 50 days after the last one, comes amidst preliminary preparations by the two armies for their annual summer exercises and stepped-up deployments in the coming weeks along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the high-altitude region.

India this time is keeping a hawk-eye through ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) platforms like drones, aircraft with electro-optic sensors and satellites on the way the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is making “initial moves” for the summer exercises in the desolate Aksai Chin plateau, said sources.

Around the same time last year, Indian forces were initially caught off-guard after the PLA diverted troops from the exercises to make multiple incursions into eastern Ladakh in a well-coordinated manner.

Though the two sides undertook disengagement at the major face-off sites on both sides of the Pangong Tso

in February this year, there has been no troop de-induction and consequent de-escalation along the LAC till now.

Sources said India is “relatively hopeful of forward movement” in completing the stalled disengagement at patrolling points (PPs) 15, 17 and 17A in the Hot Springs-Gogra-Kongka La area. At the confrontation sites there, just about 50-60 soldiers face each other, though they are present in considerable strength in the rear areas.

India on Friday also took up the “restoration of unhindered patrolling rights” in the strategically-located Depsang Plains or `Bulge’ area, the table-top plateau located at 16,000-feet, which has been “a source of constant friction” since at least 2013. “But no forward movement is expected in Depsang at this stage,” said

India has earlier also strongly objected to the blocking of its troop patrols from going to their traditional PPs-10, 11, 11A, 12, and 13 in the Depsang area, which are well short of India’s perception of the LAC in the region.The PLA has been consistently intercepting Indian patrols in the `Bottleneck’ area, which is 18-km inside what India perceives to be its territory.

The “friction” at the Charding Ninglung Nallah (CNN) track junction in the Demchok sector, which arose after the PLA pitched some tents while also denying grazing rights to Indian villagers there, however, should be easier to resolve, said the sources.

Courtesy: TOI