India and China to hold fresh round of border talks

New Delhi, Sep 18: The 12th round of the China-India border talks to resolve their decades-old border dispute issue will commence in Beijing from Thursday, Sep 18.

The Indian delegation will be lead by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan while State Counsellor Dai Bingguo will head the Chinese delegation. This is the 12th round of boundary negotiations between the two sides since they appointed Special Representatives in 2003 to resolve the decades-old issue from a political perspective after the diplomatic parleys failed to yield results. The 11th round of talks was held in Beijing in September 2007. In Philippines, in January on the sidelines of ASEAN-India Summit, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had said the Special Representatives should hold the talks with 'greater vigour and innovativeness.'

The 10th round of talks between the Narayanan and Dai was held in New Delhi and Coonoor from April 20-22, 2007 during which, the two sides continued their discussions on a framework for the boundary settlement on the basis of the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles reached in 2005.

In 2005, during Jiabao's visit to India, both sides established the guiding principles and political parameters for resolving the boundary dispute. Beijing and New Delhi in June 2003 appointed Special Representatives to address the border issue from a political perspective of the overall bilateral relations.

The boundary dispute between India and China involve large areas along their 4,000-kilometre border. India says China is occupying 43,180 sq km of Jammu and Kashmir, including 5,180 sq km ceded to Beijing by Islamabad under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement of 1963. China, in turn, says India is in possession of some 90,000 sq km of Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh.

Before the appointment of Special Representatives, eight rounds of border talks had already been held between 1981 and 1987 and an additional 14 Joint Working Group meetings between 1988 and 2003.

ANI