- India will continue to strongly press its demand for China to withdraw its troops and restore the status quo ante along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, though it remains prepared for the long haul in the high-altitude region.
- “The LAC is simply not negotiable. Our troops will remain forward deployed in eastern Ladakh till the Chinese soldiers withdraw,” said an officer, after a consultative meeting among top officials from the Army and the foreign and defence ministries on Monday. The inter-ministerial meeting, a smaller version of the high-powered China Study Group led by national security advisor Ajit Doval, to formulate India’s future strategy came ahead of diplomatic talks through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) later this week.
- Five rounds of top-level military talks between the rival corps commanders have failed to break the deadlock in the stalled troop disengagement in Pangong Tso and Gogra as well as de-escalation in the rival military build-ups in the strategically-located Depsang Plains-Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector, as reported by TOI earlier.
- With China adopting a rigid stand in its design to forcibly push the LAC westwards, the military confrontation is into its fourth month now. India, too, has adopted a hardline military position, with a massive advance winter stocking exercise for its over 30,000 soldiers deployed just in Ladakh.
- “It will require top-level political-diplomatic intervention since the military talks have failed to make any headway, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) making unreasonable demands,” another official said.
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