BEIRUT, LEBANON (7:45 P.M.) – India is not willing to back down to any Chinese threats along disputed Land of Actual Control (LAC) border, the Indian Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday.
In his first public comment since the recent border conflict broke out between China and India, Singh said that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) violated his country’s territorial integrity and forced a border standoff.
“Our policy is very clear that we will not hurt [the] self-respect of our neighbors, but I assured the nation that the government would not let anyone hurt India’s self-respect as well”, Rajnath Singh said in an interview with the channel News 18 on Tuesday.
Singh continued that the solutions are being found through diplomatic and military talks, pointing out that high-level talks are scheduled to take place on June 6th.
“This kind of tension escalated in the past as well and a solution was found”, he said, referring to the 73-day Doklam stand-off in 2017.
The Indian Army and the People’s Liberations Army have been engaged in a stand-off over “no man’s land” in the eastern Ladakh region’s Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso for more than a month.
Both Beijing and New Delhi have conducted eight rounds of talks to de-escalate the tensions, but the two sides continue to maintain aggressive posturing in the disputed border areas.
Sources: Sputnik, Times of India
