UN Chief Guterres Applauds India-China Border De-Escalation Agreement

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hopes that "good neighborly relations" between India and China will be strengthened following their agreement on border de-escalation, his Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Tuesday.
"We certainly welcome any positive engagement between the nations of China and India, and we hope that the process of good neighborly relations will be strengthened," he stated at the daily UN briefing.

The neighbors agreed on patrolling along the nearly 3,500-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) to end the four-year-long border confrontation that led to a fatal clash. "An agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020," India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian confirmed the agreement, "which China views favorably." According to him, "Going forward, the Chinese side and the Indian side will implement those resolutions.".

Indian and Chinese troops clashed in June 2020 with homemade weapons along the LAC in the Galwan Valley area in a zone where firearms are prohibited under a mutual agreement. About 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese troops lost their lives in the encounter. Since then, the two sides have been in a tense standoff that the agreement reached after intense negotiations hopes to de-escalate.

It was announced before the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, where the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, and President Xi Jinping of China will attend. Guterres will be in attendance at the summit of BRICS, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The five leading non-Western nations initially formed the grouping, which later grew to encompass five additional countries.