India, China sign key pact on border peace. BEIJING – Seeking to defuse the recurring border stand-offs, India and China today inked a comprehensive pact which commits them not to use military capability to attack each other but a deal on a liberalised visa regime could not be signed with India strongly opposing China’s stapled visa policy, reports PTI. Under a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) signed after extensive talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang here, the two neighbours also agreed not to tail each other’s patrol along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which has witnessed numerous incursions by Chinese troops at Depsang Valley in Ladakh. The BDCA facilitates the establishment of a hotline between the military headquarters of the two countries and meeting sites for border personnel in all sectors of the 4,000-km LAC. The talks between the two premiers at the Great Hall of the People lasted over three hours. Singh and Li met for the second time this year for “fruitful and productive” discussions. In all, nine agreements, including the BDCA and one on strengthening cooperation on trans-border rivers, were signed after restricted and delegation-level talks. But as expected, there was no agreement on liberalising the visa regime, which the Chinese side was very keen on but India was not in the wake of a controversy over stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy to two Indian archers from Arunachal Pradesh. During the talks, India objected to stapled visas issued by China to residents of some Indian states over whose parts Beijing has laid claim. Singh pledged his commitment to easing the visa regime to facilitate the travel of Chinese nationals. He told the media after the talks that he had “conveyed to Premier Li our commitment to visa simplification to facilitate travel of Chinese nationals to India and expressed the hope that China will also facilitate such exchanges”. Ahead of the visit, there were indications that an agreement on a liberalised visa regime was close to being signed between the countries. But upset by the issue of stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh, India decided to defer the issue in a virtual tit-for-tat. Sources said the agreement will be signed “some day” but India has decided to “slow down things” for the moment. The two premiers told the media the fact that they met twice in a single calendar year , the first time this has happened since 1954, reflected the significance of the strategic relationship between the two countries. The agreements signed today will inject a new dynamism in the ties, they said.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 23:47:49 +0000
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