![\"India-China](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2022-10\/crper0ng_pangong-tso-ladakh-reuters_625x300_07_October_22.jpg?im=FaceCrop,algorithm=dnn,width=650,height=400\"\/ "\\"India-China")
<\/div>\nIndia and China made some headway during last month’s round of top-level military talks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
New Delhi: <\/b><\/p>\n
Despite some “positive steps”, the situation on the Line of Actual Control is “still not normal”, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday, in response to a question on relations with China.<\/p>\n
“The situation is still not normal. Some positive steps have been taken, but some more need to be taken,” foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a news briefing in Delhi.<\/p>\n
India and China pulled back soldiers from a friction point along their de facto border last month, the Defence Ministry had said, following a two-year stand-off with sporadic deadly clashes.<\/p>\n
The two sides agreed during the 16th round of top-level military talks to begin withdrawing “troops in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs”, according to the statement.<\/p>\n
The move, on the frontier between them in Ladakh, was “conducive to the peace and tranquillity in the border areas”, it added.<\/p>\n
The two countries had mobilised tens of thousands of soldiers in the high-altitude Ladakh region after a hand-to-hand battle in 2020 left at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead.<\/p>\n
Relations plunged between the Asian giants, which fought a full-scale war in 1962 and have a series of border disputes stretching from India’s Ladakh to its northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.<\/p>\n
Beijing claims that state in its entirety and considers it part of Tibet.<\/p>\n
Both countries have regularly accused each other of trying to seize territory along their unofficial divide, known as the Line of Actual Control.<\/p>\n
Last year, the rivals announced a similar disengagement of their troops from the Pangong Lake area on the disputed border in Ladakh, but other friction points remain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n