External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday (2 March) held bilateral talks with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang with a focus on the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The discussions took place on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.

“Met Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on sidelines of #G20FMM this afternoon. Our discussions were focused on addressing current challenges to the bilateral relationship, especially peace and tranquillity in the border areas,” Jaishankar tweeted.

It is the first meeting between Jaishankar and Qin, after the latter became the Chinese foreign minister in December.

In June 2020, a violent clash between Indian and Chinese troops took place in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh, resulting in the loss of 20 soldiers from the Indian side.

While the Chinese government acknowledged only four casualties, multiple reports suggest that the actual number of Chinese casualties may have been over 40.

Following the Galwan Valley incident, India and China have been engaged in a prolonged border standoff, marked by multiple skirmishes between the troops of the two countries.

Just last year (December 2022), Indian and Chinese troops again clashed in the Yangtse locality of Tawang region of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The talks came nearly eight months after Jaishankar held a meeting with the then Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, in Bali on the sidelines of a G20 meeting.

During the one-hour meeting on 7 July, Jaishankar had conveyed to Wang the need for early resolution of all the outstanding issues in eastern Ladakh.

The external affairs minister had told Wang that the relationship between the two countries should be based on “three mutuals” — mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests.

Wang had visited India in March last year.

On 22 February, India and China held in-person diplomatic talks in Beijing and discussed proposals for disengagement in the remaining friction points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh in an “open and constructive manner”.

The meeting took place under the framework of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC).

(With inputs from PTI.)