India-China agree to resolve face-off at Doklam

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 28 2017, DH News: India and China agreed to resolve the more-than-two-month-long military face-off at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan.

The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday issued a press release announcing that India and China had agreed upon "expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam" on the basis of "diplomatic communications" between the two neighbouring nations in the "recent weeks".

The MEA did not make public the details of the understanding the two sides arrived at, but stated that the "disengagement" of the border personnel at the face-off site was "on-going".

The face-off started on June 18 when soldiers form Indian Army’s forward post at Doka La in Sikkim went to Doklam Plateau to stop personnel of Chinese People’s Liberation Army from constructing a road. The PLA soldiers had started building the road along the disputed border between Bhutan and China on June 16, brushing aside protests from Royal Bhutanese Army personnel deployed nearby. The intervention by Indian Army soldiers two days later resulted in the face-off, which went on for weeks.

New Delhi has been arguing that Indian Army had to intervene as the road the Chinese PLA had been building would have a serious security implication for India and would have unilaterally changed the status quo on India-China-Bhutan tri-junction boundary.