India, China troops complete disengagement process in Gogra-Hot Springs area of eastern Ladakh

NEW DELHI: India and China on Tuesday completed the troop disengagement at Patrolling Point-15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area of eastern Ladakh, which India hopes will set the stage for further negotiations on the more crucial face-offs at the strategically-located Depsang Plains and Demchok.
The disengagement process began on September 8 following discussions at the 16th round of corps commander level talks where it was decided that both sides would move back from their present positions, followed by verification.

The disengagement process included dismantling of infrastructure built by both the neighbour countries. The previous locations from where they had disengaged included the Galwan area and the two banks of the Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh.
Chinese troops withdrew from ‘Finger-4’ to its Sirijap positions east of ‘Finger-8’. In effect, Indian troops can no longer patrol an around 10-km stretch in ‘Finger’ area now.
The buffer zone at PP-15 will be the fourth one to be established in the over 28-month-long military confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh. The earlier ones, varying from 3-km to almost 10-km, came up at PP-14 (Galwan Valley), PP-17A (Gogra) and Pangong Tso-Kailash Range region after troop disengagements at those face-off sites.