26th August, New Delhi Manish Tewari, the leader of the Congress, said on Saturday that “disengagement” is not included in the Chinese readout of the meeting between President Xi Jingping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also questioned whether any disengagement was occurring and on what conditions.
Tewari, a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament from the Punjabi district of Anandpur Sahib, remarked on X, “It’s remarkable that the Chinese readout of President Xi Jingping and the PMO’s meeting makes no mention of withdrawal. Instead, it states that the conference was arranged at India’s request and that both parties should keep in mind the overarching goals of their bilateral relations and correctly address the border problem in order to jointly preserve peace and tranquilly in the border area. The Indian stance, he added, is that Modi and Xi “agreed to direct their relevant officials to intensify efforts at expedited disengagement and de-escalation.”
In a broadside directed at the administration, Tewari, a former Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, stated, “Given that two readouts are as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, disengagement, if any, is occurring on whose terms? Is India now prepared to recognise the Chinese claim line from 1959? What has changed to India’s stance? Restore the status quo to before April 2020 in order to normalise ties. What will happen to the 2,000 km2 of Indian Territory that China has occupied since April 2020?
He made the comments and included a link to the readout released by the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
When questioned about the conversation between Modi and Xi at a press conference on the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on August 24, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said, “Both the leaders agreed to direct relevant officials to intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation.”
According to Kwatra, the Prime Minister emphasised the need of maintaining peace, tranquilly, and respect for LAC in border regions in order for India-China relations to normalise. The Foreign Secretary said that the Prime Minister brought up India’s concerns about outstanding problems along the LAC during his chat with the Chinese president Xi Jinping.
