Bilateral ties only after border peace, defence minister Rajnath Singh told Chinese counterpart

New Delhi: Peace on the border is imperative to move ahead with bilateral cooperation, defence minister Rajnath Singh told Chinese counterpart General Li Shangfu during their talks in New Delhi on Thursday. China's violation of border agreements has eroded the very basis of bilateral relationship, Singh said.

Development of relations between India and China was 'premised on prevalence of peace of tranquility at the borders', Singh told his counterpart, according to government insiders. The meeting ahead of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation defence ministers conference focused only on prevailing border tensions. While the Chinese team tried to raise talks on military-to-military ties, India rejected it and conveyed that peace on the border needed to be established first before any other issues were taken up.

"He (Rajnath Singh) reiterated that violation of existing agreements had eroded the entire basis of bilateral relations and disengagement at the border will logically be followed with de-escalation," an official statement released after talks on Thursday evening read, adding the minister said that all issues on the Line of Actual Control need to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements.


Insiders said it was made clear that bilateral relationship was at its nadir due to China's unprovoked deployment of PLA troops on the Ladakh border. It was made clear that platitudes were meaningless in such a scenario.