India,China held the 13th round of talks on border standoff

India and China on Sunday held the 13th round of talks on the Ladakh standoff.The meeting, which started at 10:30 am, lasted for around eight hours, and concluded at 7 pm. During the talks, according to sources, India pressed for an early disengagement of troops in the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh. The talks between corps commander-ranked officers from the two armies held at Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC. It came more than two months after the last round of talks that led to disengagement of forward deployed troops from Gogra or Patrol Point-17A, which was one of the flashpoints on LAC, in early August.

Top Indian and Chinese commanders had agreed to a speedy resolution of outstanding issues on LAC at the 12th round of talks, with the dialogue focusing on disengagement of rival troops from the remaining flashpoints on the contested border, sources said. It is learnt that a major focus of the Corps Commander-level talks was to complete the stalled disengagement at Patrolling Point 15. The talks took place in the backdrop of two recent incidents of attempted transgressions by the Chinese troops - one in the Barahoti sector of Uttarakhand and another in the Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Indian delegation at Sunday's talks was led by Lt Gen PGK Menon, the Commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps. The border standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries erupted on May 5 last year following a violent clash in the Pangong lake areas and both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry.