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India, China to discuss border row next week
2007-04-15
Officials from the world's most populous countries and economic rivals, India and China, will hold fresh talks next week to resolve a decades-old border dispute, an official said Saturday. "The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo is expected to arrive in New Delhi on April 20," said the official, who wished to remain unidentified. "The talks are scheduled for the weekend of April 21-22." The plans for the India-China talks come after New Delhi tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile last week that puts several cities in China and the Middle East within its reach. China reacted swiftly to the missile test, saying it hoped India could "work to maintain and promote peace and stability in the region." The talks also follow Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing's expression of confidence last month that the border dispute -- a legacy of a brief but bitter 1962 border conflict -- would eventually be resolved. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (15,200 square miles) of its territory in Kashmir, while Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometres of the remote Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. A formal ceasefire line was never established after the war, but the border has remained mostly peaceful after agreements were signed in 1993 and 1996. China and India appointed special representatives to address the issue in 2003, and they have met for several rounds of talks since then. In April 2005, India and China signed an agreement setting the "guiding principles" for a border settlement pact. During a visit to New Delhi in November, Chinese President Hu Jintao said both sides would accord priority to resolving the border row. Diplomatic ties between the two countries have increased in recent years with the exchange of many bilateral visits and two-way trade touching two billion dollars a month, India's trade minister Kamal Nath told reporters in New Delhi on Friday. Sources said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh planned to visit China this year. An unnamed government official said next week's talks would be held at a popular holiday destination in south India. He declined to identify the resort but the Indian Express newspaper said the picturesque Nilgiri resort district in southern Tamil Nadu state was the venue for the talks.
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