External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, on Saturday, hailed the military that worked in "very very unimaginable" conditions and deft diplomacy, for the breakthrough agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control.
A few days ago, India had said it reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, in a major breakthrough in ending the over four-year-long military standoff.
Responding to a question during an interaction with students in Pune, the external affairs minister said normalisation of relations will take time as it requires rebuilding a degree of trust and willingness to work together.
"If today we have reached where we have...One is because of the very determined effort on our part to stand our ground and make our point. The military was there (at LAC) in very very unimaginable conditions to defend the country, and the military did its part and diplomacy did its part," he said.
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Speaking about India's improved infrastructure along the LAC, he said in the earlier years, the border infrastructure was really neglected, and added, "Today we have put in five times more resources annually than there used to be a decade ago which is showing results and enabling the military to actually be effectively deployed. The combination of these (factors) has led to where it is."
Since 2020, the situation on the border has been very disturbed which understandably negatively impacted the overall relationship, and India has been negotiating with China on how to find a solution to the problem, the EAM said.
Jaishankar said there were different aspects of this solution. The pressing one is disengagement because troops are very very close to each other and the possibility of something happening existed. Then there is de-escalation because of troop buildup on both sides, he added.
"Then there is a larger issue of how you manage the border and negotiate the boundary settlement. Right now everything that's going is concerning the first part which is disengagement."
He said India and China came to an understanding at some places after 2020 on how troops return to their bases but a significant segment was related to patrolling, the external affairs minister pointed out.
