NEW DELHI: After a fortnight of incursions, Chinese troops on Friday started withdrawing from India’s Chumar area in Ladakh following talks between the two armies.
The pullback by around 750 PLA troops began after the issue was resolved at the third flag meeting between the two sides, army sources said here.
After a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in New York, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced that the two countries have resolved the stand-off at the Ladakh border and withdrawal of troops will begin on Friday and be completed by 30th September.
Swaraj said that the two sides have also decided on a timeline for the withdrawal of troops.
As per the understanding between the two sides at a Brigadier-level flag meeting, it is learnt that the Indian side agreed to dismantle its observation posts in the area while the Chinese agreed to stop the construction of a road there.
This exercise appeared to be a re-run of last year’s Depsang Plains stand-off where the Chinese had demanded the dismantling of Indian positions in Chumar in return for withdrawing its troops from the Indian territory and succeeded in getting their demands accepted before leaving.
The two sides have agreed to restore the pre-10th September position in the area and the Chinese side will withdraw its troops from Indian areas by 30th September, sources said.
The two armies were engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation at Chumar, casting a shadow on the first visit of Chinese President Xi Jingping to India.
Tension in the area erupted over two weeks ago when some Chinese workers, who were constructing a road on their side, crossed into the Indian side and claimed that they had orders to build a road up to Tible, 5-km deep inside Indian territory.PTI