India, China discuss border dispute

India and China on Monday discussed ways and means to resolve their long-standing border dispute.

Officials of the two countries held two rounds of talks on the opening day of the tenth meeting of the India-China joint working group in New Delhi. The Indian side was led by Foreign Secretary K Raghunath while the Chinese delegation was headed by Vice Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.

Official sources said the two delegations will have another round of talks on Tuesday before the Chinese delegation leaves for Islamabad. They, however, declined to disclose what transpired at Monday's talks. A statement on the outcome of the meeting may be issued at the end of the two-day discussions.

The meeting is being held against the backdrop of last fortnight's discussions between Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram and Chinese Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen at the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, where the two sides agreed to carry forward the talks to normalise relations. Government sources said the meeting was aimed at resolving the Indo-China boundary question in a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable manner.

The JWG meetings began in 1989. New Delhi claims that China has illegally occupied 38,000 sq km of area in Jammu and Kashmir.

UNI