Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said on Tuesday that Indian forces will disengage with China in Ladakh only after the situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) returns to the “status quo of April 2020”.His remark came a day after New Delhi announced that India and China have reached an agreement on disengagement in eastern Ladakh after an over four-year-long standoff.
General Dwivedi said the forces are trying to restore trust with the Chinese side, which had attempted to destabilize the LAC with its aggressive activities.
“We want to go back to the status quo of April 2020. Thereafter we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of LAC… This has been our stand since April 2020. As of now, we are trying to restore the trust. That will happen once we are able to see each other and we are able to convince and reassure each other that we are not creeping into buffer zones that have been created,” he told ANI.
India and China’s bilateral relations deteriorated due to Beijing’s aggressive posture at LAC in April-May 2020.
India maintains that New Delhi’s relations with China will only normalise after the situation at the de-facto border returns to what it was before May 2020.