‘India, China moving in positive direction’

New Delhi: India and China are moving towards a “positive direction” in their ties and work needs to be done to normalise the relationship, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

“I think we are moving in a positive direction,” he said.

India-China relations plunged to their lowest point since the 1962 war following the Galwan Valley clashes.

Following a series of diplomatic and military talks, the two sides withdrew their troops from several friction along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

“It’s obviously better than the last time I was here. I think the disengagement, particularly the Depsang-Demchok was important,” he said at the News 18 Rising Bharat Summit.

In October last, the two sides firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok, the last two friction points in eastern Ladakh.

Days after the agreement was finalised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks in Kazan and took a number of decisions to improve the ties.

Jaishankar suggested that issues on the border remained to some extent because of the force build up over a period of years. “But there were many other things which also happened during this period some of it was a collateral of the situation; some of it was actually a carryover from the Covid era. For example, our direct flights stopped during Covid, they were not resumed,” he said.

“The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra stopped during Covid. It did not again resume. I think there is work to be done. We are at it,” he said.

“We are sort of trying to see whether lot of this post-Covid and parallel to the border tension, the combination of these issues -- how much we can progress on this,” Jaishankar added. He said both sides are looking into these issues.

“We are looking at it because at the end of the day we have always maintained that the situation, which we saw between 2020 and 2024, was not in the interest of either country,” he said. “It was not in the interest of our relationship. And I think there is a recognition of that now,” he added.

Last month, India and China explored ways to rebuild ties and agreed to initiate efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges, including arrangements for resumption of direct flights and resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra this year.

Raised concerns of radicalisation in Bangladesh: Jaishankar on PM Modi’s meeting with Yunus

India conveyed its concerns over attacks on minorities and radicalisation in Bangladesh at the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and head of the neighbouring country’s interim government Muhammad Yunus last week, Jaishankar said.

He also underscored India’s push for holding fresh polls in Bangladesh, saying elections are essential to democracies, and asserted that “no country wishes Bangladesh well more than us”.

”I think the main messages from our side which came out at the meeting -- one that our relationship with Bangladesh for historical reasons is a very unique relationship. It’s very fundamentally a people-to-people connect,” Jaishankar said.

“No country wishes Bangladesh well more than us; that’s almost in our DNA. As a well-wisher, as a friend, I think we hope they go the right way and do the right things,” he said.

Jaishankar said the Indian side was very open in sharing its concerns over the current situation in Bangladesh.

“We have concerns about radicalising tendencies. We have concerns about the attacks on minorities. I think we were very open about sharing those concerns,” he said responding to a question on what PM Modi conveyed to Yunus.