NEW DELHI: Describing India’s relationship with China as complex, foreign secretary Harsh Shringla said the two countries could not have a normal relationship if the border areas continued to witness transgressions. The remark follows comments by Beijing last month that the border problems be delinked from bilateral ties.
The remark came in the middle of the disengagement at Pangong Tso. Addressing a meeting hosted by the diplomatic academy of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, Shringla said the relationship between the two Asian giants was definitely dependent on normal situation at the border.
“As I told our friends in China, we cannot have a normal bilateral relationship if there is no peace and tranquillity in our border areas,” Shringla, on a two-day visit to Moscow, said. “We cannot have our troops having loss of life, having situation of transgression at the border and still go about a normal relationship,” he said, adding that the border stand-off had impacted the larger relationship.
Shringla described the agreement for disengagement as a step in the right direction and said the process was expected to be completed in the next 2-3 days. Shringla called on Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and handed over a letter of invitation from foreign minister S Jaishankar to visit India at a mutually convenient date. Lavrov accepted the invitation, the government said