China and India said they agreed to press for an early withdrawal of troops from the front line after soldiers clashed along the contested Himalayan border in the first outbreak of violence in the area in seven months.
The two countries said at a commander-level meeting held on Sunday that they will maintain dialogue and negotiations, according to a joint press release issued by China’s Ministry of Defense on Monday night. China and India have agreed to hold the next meeting at an early date to anticipate scaling down, they said in the statement.
The statement did not mention the latest clash between troops.
Soldiers on both sides were injured in the new outbreak of violence along the border across the state of Sikkim, in the northeast of the country, ANI reported. The Indian Army confirmed in a statement that there was a “minor confrontation” in the Nakula area of North Sikkim on January 20, which was resolved by local commanders.
It is the same area where violence between the two armies broke out on May 9.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a news conference in Beijing on Monday that he “had no information to offer” on reports of the clashes.
Why Chinese and Indian troops are clashing, again: QuickTake
“I would like to emphasize, however, that China’s border troops are committed to maintaining peace and tranquility along the border with India,” said Zhao. “We urge the Indian side to work in the same direction as us and to refrain from actions that could aggravate or complicate the situation along the border.”
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, supported by the Communist Party, called the reports “fake news” in a tweet, saying there was no record of the confrontation in the patrol records on the Chinese side. Hu’s tweets are closely watched after he accurately predicted Beijing’s earlier moves, although his statements sometimes do not reflect official policy.
Both sides moved thousands of soldiers, tanks and artillery to the disputed border after clashes in the Galwan valley in Ladakh last June, which left at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers dead.
India and China share a disputed and unmarked 3,488-kilometer (2,167-mile) border, known as the Royal Control Line. The two nations held another round of talks at the level of Commander of the Corps on Sunday with the aim of ending the impasse.
– With the help of Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Lulu Shen, Lucille Liu, Colum Murphy and Jon Herskovitz