India's Defense Minister, Ragat Singh, announced that India and China have agreed to withdraw their forces from a disputed area in the western Himalayas, in the biggest effort to ease tension between the two nuclear neighbors since the bloody clash on the border last June.
The minister said in a speech to Parliament today, Thursday, that the two sides reached the agreement after several rounds of talks between military leaders and diplomats from both countries.
"Our continuous talks with China led to a disengagement agreement on the northern and southern banks of Pangung Lake," he said.
He added that when the disengagement, which began on Wednesday in the Buhaira region, is completed, military leaders will meet within 48 hours to discuss withdrawal from other areas.
The Indian minister explained that the situation will return to what it was before the outbreak of the confrontation last year, and stressed that his country had not made any concessions.
He added that the Canadian government has informed Beijing that its troop movements have severely damaged peace and stability in the region, stressing that bilateral relations have been damaged.
Simultaneous withdrawal
Earlier, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, Wu Qian, said briefly, on Wednesday, that the front-line forces from both sides "began to disengage (on both banks of the lake) in a synchronized and orderly manner on February 10."
The chapters of this crisis began in April of last year, when India said that Chinese forces had entered the New Delhi side of the Line of Actual Control in the Ladakh region of the western Himalayas.
Beijing said its forces were operating in its own region, and accused the Indian border guards of committing provocative acts.
The situation flared up in June, when at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unofficial number of Chinese forces were killed in a clash in the Ladakh region, the worst confrontation between the two countries in 45 years.
The two most populous countries in the world later sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the border.
The last open conflict between the two countries was a blitzkrieg that took place in 1962, which ended in a swift defeat of the Indian army.
The two countries have long accused each other of seeking to cross the borders, which were not officially demarcated in the Ladakh region, off Tibet.
India and China share a border of 3,500 km, and disputes are taking place in several points, including Aksai Chen, a strategic corridor linking Tibet with western China near the Galuan Valley, and the Nakula region in the far east.
Under a long-standing rule to avoid a military confrontation, neither armies use firearms along the border.