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India, China Call on Each Other to Pull Back Troops

Anjana Pasricha

   NEW DELHI - Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said Thursday that
   New Delhi wants a peaceful resolution to its border dispute with China
   but is prepared for all contingencies to defend its sovereignty and
   territorial integrity.

   Calling on Beijing to implement a recent understanding to disengage
   their troops, Singh said, "We can start a war, but its end is not in
   our hands."

   A military standoff between the two countries is now in its fifth month
   with troops from both sides deployed in huge numbers in the high
   Himalayas in Ladakh, a strategic cold desert region that borders Tibet.

   Both sides have put the blame on the other for sparking their most
   serious face-off in decades and called for a pull back of troops.

   Speaking Thursday in the upper house of parliament, Singh said China
   had violated bilateral agreements by amassing troops and armaments
   along the Line of Actual Control in the Himalayas that divides their
   unsettled boundary. He blamed Chinese soldiers for not allowing Indian
   troops to patrol in traditional areas.

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