China's first reaction to Ladakh truce with India: 'Reached a solution'

China's foreign ministry on Tuesday confirmed that it has reached an agreement with India to end the standoff in eastern Ladakh.

"In recent times, China and India have maintained close communication on relevant issues on the China-India border through diplomatic and military channels. At present, the two sides have reached a solution to the relevant issues, which China has positively evaluated. In the next step, China will work with India to implement the above solution,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.

New Delhi said on Monday that India and China have reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control, the de-facto border.

"We have been in discussion with Chinese interlocutors through WMCC as was mentioned earlier and at the military level as well through meetings of the military commanders at various levels. These discussions have in the past resulted in the resolution of standoffs at various locations. You are also aware that there were a few locations where the standoff had not been resolved," foreign secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday.

"Now as a result of the discussions that have taken place over the last several weeks, an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the line of actual control in the India-China border areas and this is leading to dis-engagement and eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020," he added.

China provoked a standoff in Ladakh in 2020 with its aggressive activities along the Line of Actual Control.

Several friction points had been resolved during multiple rounds of diplomatic and military-level talks over the years.

India maintains that its relations with China will not normalise until the situation at LAC returns to what it was before May 2020

Elaborating on the fresh agreement, external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday said the situation at the Line of Actual Control will go back to what it was before May 2020.

"What the Foreign Secretary has said is what I can also say, that we reached an agreement on patrolling and with that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020. We can say that the disengagement process with China has been completed...There are areas which for various reasons after 2020... because they had blocked us so we had blocked them. So what has happened is we have reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling (sic)," news agency ANI quoted him as saying at an NDTV event.

Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said today that Indian forces will disengage with China in Ladakh only after the situation at the Line of Actual Control returns to the "status quo of April 2020".