Beijing
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhao on Saturday said Indian troops posted in the disputed Galwan Valley violated the agreement between Beijing and New Delhi by crossing the Line of Actual Control earlier this week which resulted in more than 20 Indian soldiers being killed.
On June 15, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed and more than 70 injured in a violent face-off with Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh Valley. The rival armies have been eyeball-to-eyeball at their border for decades but it was the worst clash since 1967 — five years after China humiliated India in the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
In a series of tweets, Zhao said India’s front-line troops violently attacked the Chinese officers and soldiers who went there for negotiations, thus “triggering fierce physical conflicts and causing casualties.”
The spokesperson while giving a step-by-step account of the Galwan clash said for many years, the Chinese border troops have been patrolling and on duty in this region.
Both countries on Saturday traded accusations that the other had violated their shared de facto border, an area that this week became the site of the deadliest clash between the two nuclear-armed giants. A day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to downplay Monday’s clash, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and injured more than 70, his government blamed the Chinese side for seeking to erect structures “just across the Line of Actual Control”, as the demarcation is knowement.– Agencies
