Standoff with China will be a long one
India's defence ministry has warned, in a statement since removed from its website, that a military standoff with China that began with border fighting in June is likely to be a long one, despite multiple rounds of talks between the nuclear-armed rivals to defuse the tension.
The ministry said in an update for June - which has now been removed - that Chinese forces had breached the border in the Kugrang Nala and Gogra areas and the north shore of Pangong Tso lake in the northern Indian territory of Ladakh on May 17-18.
New Delhi says a "violent face-off" that followed the intrusion killed 20 of its soldiers in the western Himalayas.
It was the worst outbreak of violence between the giant Asian neighbours in decades. China accuses the Indian side of crossing the de facto border and provoking its soldiers.
"While engagement and dialogue at military and diplomatic level is continuing to arrive at mutually acceptable consensus, the present standoff is likely to be prolonged," the Indian defence ministry said in the now-removed statement, which was posted to Twitter by Reuters partner ANI and others on Thursday.
In another development, India's federal government yesterday named a former telecoms minister to lead the restive region of Kashmir, where it hopes to accelerate economic development and end years of strife. Manoj Sinha, a leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party, will replace career bureaucrat GC Murmu as lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, a government statement said.
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