CHINA and India have agreed to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border, India’s government said on Thursday.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos.

During the talks the two top diplomats stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants.

The line separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. It turned into a long-running dispute in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel.

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops in the area.

The two foreign ministers “agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest,” according to an Indian statement late on Thursday, which added that peace on the border is essential for restoring normalcy in ties between the two countries.

Mr Wang stressed that improving China-India ties is beneficial for both countries as well as for other nations, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported.

Mr Jaishankar said that the border issues have “cast a shadow” over India-China ties for the last four years despite considerable efforts by both sides to solve them. 

“The state of the border will necessarily be reflected in the state of our ties,” he said, according to the statement.