External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said that India has given a counter proposal to China for Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA).
“China has proposed sometime back a proposal for Border Defence Cooperation Agreement...We have also given our suggestions,” said Khurshid, who returned from his two-day visit to Beijing on Saturday in the backdrop of deep Chinese incursion in ladakh.
The Minister said that India has also given a counter proposal to BDCA and both countries were examining these proposals. Khurshid, however, refrained from divulging any further details on the Indian proposal. He also clarified that the proposals were not meant to replace any existing ones.
Khurshid, said, for the first time, China has shown “sensitivity” towards India’s demand for expanding mechanism to deal with issues pertaining to trans-border rivers.
Under BDCA, China had proposed expansion of friendly contacts and more communication between the troops of the two sides on the ground, which would help avoid any misunderstanding or flare-up along the line of Actual Control (lAC).
On the recent incursion by Chinese troops in Daulat Beg Oldi sector, Khurshid asserted that he “flagged” the issue at the three-hour long meeting with his counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday. Khurshid said both sides had expressed “satisfaction” over the fact that the stand-off in ladakh was resolved peacefully through existing mechanisms.
“We said that we both need to do analysis of why it happened. And while all this is going on, we can improve our attempts and our ability to resolve the larger issue, which we finally have to resolve,” said Khurshid.
“We did not do any post-mortem and we were not apportioning blame,” he added. He said, India also flagged the need to expand or set up a separate mechanism to deal with issues pertaining to trans-border rivers.
Khurshid said the 16th round of talks between the Special Representatives on the boundary question was scheduled to take place in the next two months. He said China had appointed the former Foreign Minister and top diplomat Yang Jiechi as the new SR to succeed recently retired former State Councillor Dai Bingguo, who chaired the previous round with National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon.
For the first time, India has seen some “movement” with China assuring that it was committed to ensuring that India’s rights were not harmed, he said.
