By Shakir Husain
HYDERABAD, Aug 7 (Bernama) -- India and China have agreed to continue using existing diplomatic and military channels to resolve outstanding border issues following talks in New Delhi, where both sides reaffirmed the need to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border.
India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that India and China engaged in frank discussions and reviewed the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) during the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) on Thursday.
The talks covered issues related to boundary delimitation, border management and trans-border cooperation.
“It was underlined that maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations," the ministry said.
Both sides also agreed to continue to use existing diplomatic and military channels, including the WMCC, local commander-level meetings and other agreed mechanisms, to resolve outstanding issues and avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation along the LAC, it said.
India sought an early convening of the next meeting of experts on trans-border rivers and "emphasised the importance of sharing technical details on upstream projects", it said.
The Indian side was led by Sujit Ghosh, a joint secretary in the ministry, while the Chinese delegation was led by Hou Yanqi, the director general of the Boundary and Oceanic Affairs Department in China's Foreign Ministry.
The previous round of WMCC talks was hosted in Beijing in May.
--NNN-BERNAMA