Normalcy in bilateral ties with China will only be achieved based on the traditional deployment of troops and that will be the prerequisite for the relationship going forward with Beijing, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.
"My first duty to Indians is to secure the border. I can never compromise on that," Jaishankar said while responding to a question on the current state of India's relations with China during his interaction with the Indian diaspora here in the Malaysian capital.
He said every country wants "good relations with its neighbours. Who doesn't? But every relationship has to be founded on some basis." "We're still negotiating with the Chinese. I talk to my counterpart. We meet from time to time. Our military commanders negotiate with each other. But we are very clear that we had an agreement. There is a Line of Actual Control. We have a tradition of not bringing troops to that line. Both of us have bases some distance away, which is our traditional deployment place. And we want that normalcy," he said.
Copyright © 2017 Indian Grapevine a unit of Integrated Media Enterprises
