Sikkim standoff: Important to pacify India-China border issue, says BJP general secretary Ram Madhav

Umiam: BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav on Friday said it is “important to quieten” the situation on the India-China border, where the armies of the two nations are in a stand-off for the past three weeks. “Right now, it is important to quieten the situation. Subsequently, through diplomatic means, all problems can be resolved,” Madhav said when IANS asked him to comment on the stand-off between India and China in Doklam region in the Sikkim sector. [caption id=“attachment_3787943” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] However, the BJP leader refused to comment further on the matter. While China has been upping the ante on the border row, with daily briefings where it has accused India of transgressing into Chinese territory and demanded that Indian troops withdraw before any dialogue can take place, New Delhi has remained largely silent. China on Thursday also said that a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping was unlikely in Hamburg, on the sidelines of the G20, as the “atmosphere” was not good. But on Friday Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi met in Hamburg, and both smiled, shook hands and “had a conversation on a range of issues”, possibly on the border row, on the sidelines of a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders meeting. India has said Beijing’s action to “unilaterally determine tri-junction points” violated a 2012 India-China pact which says the boundary would be decided by consulting all the concerned parties. The two countries, which fought a brief but bitter war in 1962, share a little over 200 km of the border in the Sikkim sector.