New Delhi:Sept08,2020: Ahead of his expected talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said the state of the border with China cannot be de-linked from the state of the overall relationship with the neighbouring country.
The external affairs minister also described the situation in eastern Ladakh as “very serious” which he said calls for “very very deep conversation” between the two sides at a political level.
Jaishankar was speaking at an interactive session by The Indian Express newspaper.
“The state of the border cannot be de-linked from the state of the relationship. I wrote it before that unfortunate incident happened in Galwan,” Jaishankar said referring to his newly published book ‘The India Way’.
Tensions escalated manifold along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details. According to an American intelligence report, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35.
“If peace and tranquility on the border is not a given, then it cannot be that the rest of the relationship continues on the same basis, because clearly peace and tranquility is the basis for the relationship,” the External Affairs Minister said.
Jaishankar is set to meet Wang on September 10 in Moscow on the sidelines of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
