India to focus on solving border issues with China, says FM

MUMBAI: India will focus on finding solutions to the border issues with China that has long strained ties between the neighbouring countries, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday after assuming charge for a second straight term. India and China share a 3,800-kmsborder - much of it poorly demarcated - over which the nuclear-armed nations also fought a war in 1962. They have engaged in a military standoff since July 2020 when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in the worst clashes in five decades. “With regards to China there are still some issues at the border and our focus will be on how to solve them,” he said. India and Pakistan, which is also nuclear-armed, have fought three wars, including two over control of the held Kashmir region in the Hima layas. On Monday, leaders of the two countries engaged in diplomacy via X. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother and for mer prime minister Nawaz congratulated Modi, in what was Pakistan’s first response to the election results from across the border. “With Pakistan, we would want to find a solution to the issue of years-old cross-bor der terrorism. That can not be the policy of a good neighbour,” Jaishankar said. —Reuters