NEW DELHI, August 25. /TASS/. India and China have agreed to intensify measures for carrying out mutual troop withdrawals and de-escalating tensions on the border between the two countries in eastern Ladakh, Indian Deputy Foreign Minister Vinay Mohan Kwatra said.

The agreements were reached during a brief meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on August 23. According to the senior diplomat, during the conversation, the Indian prime minister expressed concern over the deployment of the Chinese army on the border in the eastern part of the Ladakh region and stressed that maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas was important for the normalization of India-China relations. Modi and Xi "agreed to direct their relevant officials to intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation," the Times of India quoted India's deputy foreign minister as saying.

New Delhi is proposing that Beijing first withdraw its troops from the Depsang and Demchok districts in Ladakh, and then begin to reduce military tensions along the entire 3,488-kilometer (2,000-mile) joint border. China, for its part, favors a "parallel diplomacy" approach that seeks to develop relations with India, especially in the area of trade, despite the unresolved border issue.

Relations between New Delhi and Beijing have been severely strained since clashes erupted in the mountainous Ladakh region on the Sino-Indian border in May 2020, resulting in casualties on both sides. China and India have deployed heavy artillery, tanks and aircraft to the area. After a series of military and diplomatic talks, they began a gradual withdrawal.

The lack of a demarcated border between China and India in the Himalayas (the two countries are separated by a de facto line of control) has been a source of tension for decades. In 1959, New Delhi claimed that China had forcibly annexed part of the far northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. In 1962, an armed conflict erupted, bringing some 38,000 square kilometers of the mountainous border regions of Ladakh and Aksai Chin under Chinese control.