India-China border talks to be held on June 28

Beijing: The 16th round of India-China border talks will be held in Beijing on June 28 followed by the visit of Defence Minister AK Antony a week later as the two countries are set to resume top level contacts to build on the recent visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to New Delhi. National Security Advisor and India's Special Representative (SR) for Sino-India border talks, Shivshankar Menon, would hold the border talks with his new Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on June 28-29, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday.

"The Special Representatives meeting represents another important high level contact between the two countries following Li's visit to India (last month). Therefore China pays high attention to the meeting", China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here while announcing Menon's visit.

"The two countries will follow through on the requirements of the leaders of the two countries and maintain the negotiation momentum, safeguard the peace and tranquillity at the border areas, exchange views on bilateral relations as well as major international and regional issues and push for comprehensive and in-depth development of the bilateral relations", she said.

The relations between the two countries enjoy sound momentum at the moment, she said adding that the two sides maintain effective communication on the boundary issue and the border areas between the two countries are generally stable and peaceful. This is the first round of border talks which are taking place after China's new leadership headed by President Xi Jinping took over power and also this will be Yang's first border meeting as he replaced Dai Bingguo, who was Beijing's pointman for India for a decade.

Yang, the former Foreign Minister also holds the post of State Councillor, which makes him the country's top diplomat. Also, this is the first time the two SRs are meeting after the unsavoury incident of Chinese troops erecting tents at the Depsang Valley in Ladakh area in April, which sparked off major diplomatic crisis between the two countries weeks ahead of Li's visit.

The Chinese troops pulled back following a 20-day standoff and after India conveyed a stern message through its Ambassador S Jaishankar that the incident would seriously impact the relations if it is not resolved. Though the incident figured in the talks between Li and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it was left to the SRs meeting to discuss it threadbare and come up with solution.