China and India have reached an agreement on patrolling, letting Chinese soldiers to resume their patrols as they had before the border face-off that began in May 2020, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said after Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri informed about the negotiations between both countries on Monday.

Early a day, during a media address on patrolling at the Line of Actual Control, the Foreign Secretary said that after multiple rounds of talks, both countries have agreed to disengage from the contentious points.

“We reached an agreement on patrolling, and we have gone back to the 2020 position. With that we can say the disengagement with China has been completed. There are areas which for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we had been doing till 2020,” Mr Jaishankar said at the NDTV World Summit.

During the NDTV summit, S. Jaishankar discussed the lengthy and challenging negotiations between India and China regarding border tensions. He said, “At various points of time people almost gave up. We have always maintained on the one hand we obviously had to do counter deployment, and we have been negotiating since September 2020. It has been a very patient process, though more complicated than how it should have been.”

The External Affairs Minister further added that resolving border tension was a major concern because it also impacts the bilateral ties. 

“The important thing is if we have reached an understanding, I think what it does is it creates a basis for peace and tranquillity along the border, which were there before 2020. That was a major concern. If there is no peace and tranquillity, how can other areas of bilateral ties improve?” Mr Jaishankar said.