National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is expected to visit Beijing in the coming weeks to head the Indian delegation at a fresh round of the Special Representatives dialogue on the broader boundary issue, which is set to take place after nearly five years.
In December 2019, the last round of Special Representatives (SR) talks was held in New Delhi.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Kazan on October 23 and agreed to revive the dialogue mechanism.
According to the sources, NSA Doval will soon fly to China to participate in the 23rd round of SR discussions. One of the sources told a section of the media that the SR dialogue may happen in early January or later this month.
The venue of the SR dialogue had not yet been officially announced. India and China prepared for the upcoming SR dialogue in their diplomatic discussions on December 5.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi is leading the Chinese side in the talks, while NSA Doval is representing India as a Special Representative.
Due to the dispute over the eastern Ladakh border, there has not been any SR dialogue in the last five years.
Relations between the two neighbours were severely strained as a result of the brutal faceoff at the Galwan Valley in June 2020 and the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that started in May of the same year.
As a result of the disengagement procedure from the remaining two points of conflict between Demchok and Depsang, which was concluded on October 21, the face-off essentially came to an end.
Modi and Xi met in Kazan, Russia, two days after the agreement was finalised, while attending the BRICS Summit.
The Special Representatives dialogue on the border issue is one of the dialogue mechanisms that the two sides decided to resume during the summit.
Also Read: PMML Requests Return of Nehru’s Personal Letters To Edwina from Sonia Gandhi
