After three-hour talks with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi today, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar described ties as “Work In Progress” and progressing in slower pace than desirable. Because of the border friction, the relationship is “not normal”, he stressed.
Mr Jaishankar, speaking to media, said: “Frictions, tensions rising from Chinese deployments since April 2020 cannot be reconciled with a normal relationship. Restoration of peace and tranquillity must find full expression in talks.”
“If you ask me if our relationship today is normal, then my answer is ‘no it is not normal’ (because of the Chinese deployments). Our effort today is to sort out the issue in its entirety,” he said.
The discussions centred on bilateral relations that had been disturbed by China’s actions at the border, the EAM added.
The Foreign Minister said that in Ladakh, there were still ongoing friction areas and there was “progress in other areas”. “Our discussion today was how to take this forward. So long as there are very large deployments in the border areas, clearly the border area situation is not normal. We have a situation there which is not normal,” he said.
“There should not be attempts to unilaterally change status quo.”
Mr Jaishankar said the relationship was based on “three mutuals”- mutual respect, mutual sensitivity, and mutual interest.
The EAM also informed that he had raised India’s objections to Wang’s comments on Kashmir at an event in Pakistan.
The Chinese Minister, in his opening speech at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Pakistan, had said: “On Kashmir, we have heard again today the calls of many of our Islamic friends. And China shares the same hope.”
He had referred to the comments and had conveyed why India found them objectionable, Mr Jaishankar highlighted.
“I conveyed that we hope that China will follow an independent policy with respect to India and not allow its policies to be influenced by other countries and other relationships,” he said.
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