Border dispute: We didn’t do post-mortem or apportion blame, says Salman Khurshid

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: After returning from China, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Saturday said that the meeting over India-China border dispute with the Chinese Foreign Minister was "fruitful". As the Chinese incursion concerns escalated Khurshid said that there is a need to re-look into the reasons for border intrusions. Upon his return, Khurshid addressing a press conference said that India-China is working on a new border defence co-operation agreement, adding that China has made suggestions on border protocol. After the recent stand-off between the two countries, Khurshid said that the talks between special representatives of India and China on boundary issue to take place in couple of months. During the meeting, India and China underlined things like recent incursion should not happen; agreed that this issue should not come in way of improving ties, Khurshid said. Expressing that trade balance is a concern, Khurshid said that there is a need to address imbalance of trade. Khurshid that special representatives of India and China will meet in a couple of months to discuss in detail the issues related to boundary. "China has proposed sometime back a proposal for Border Defence Cooperation Agreement...We have also given our suggestions," he said. On the recent incursion by Chinese troops 19 km into Indian territory, he said, "we did not do any post-mortem or aportion blame." He expressed satisfaction that the mechanisms in place worked well to resolve the stand off. On the contentious issues which could be raised during the visit of Chinese premier Li Keqiang, he said, "there are no prickly issues, issues of major differences which can be seen as obstacles." He said MoUs would be signed during the Chinese premier`s visit and some during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s subsequent visit to Beijing later this year. "This is for the first time since 1954 that a two way visit by the two Prime Ministers of the two countries in the same year," Khurshid said. (With PTI inputs)