Chinese Defence Minister Meets Rajnath Singh At SCO Summit
Qingdao:
China's Defence Minister Dong Jun Thursday held separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), including India, Chinese media reported.
The defence ministers of the SCO member states were in this port city of China to attend a two-day conclave.
India was represented by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
There is no official word from the Indian side on Singh's reported meeting with Dong.
A Chinese readout of the meeting said India does not seek confrontation with China and it is for enhancing communication and mutual trust.
Following the eastern Ladakh border standoff, India has been consistently maintaining that peace and stability along the border is a prerequisite for normalisation of overall ties.
The military standoff in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020 and a deadly clash at the Galwan Valley in June that year resulted in a severe downturn in ties between the two neighbours.
The face-off effectively ended following the completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21.
In December last, NSA Ajit Doval visited Beijing and held talks with Wang Yi under the framework of Special Representatives (SR) dialogue on the boundary dispute.
The decision to revive the SR mechanism and other such dialogue formats was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan on October 23.
The PM Modi-President Xi meeting came two days after India and China firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok.
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