China for ‘equitable, fair’ solution to boundary issue

Agencies Posted: Jan 15, 2008 at 2004 hrs
Beijing, January 15: China favoured an ‘equitable and fair’ solution to the boundary issue with India in the overall interests of both countries, saying it should not be allowed to hamper progress in bilateral ties.

Both sides believe that they should proceed from the perspective of overall interests of the two countries to find an equitable and fair solution acceptable to them, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at the end of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's three-day visit.

The two sides also agree that before settling the boundary issue, they should maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and ‘not to let the border issue to be an obstacle to the development of bilateral ties’.

Wrapping up his three-day visit, Singh expressed confidence that the political parameters and guiding principles agreed by the two countries in April 2005 to seek a settlement of the boundary question would guide them to a ‘mutually satisfactory solution of this issue’.

The boundary between the two countries is peaceful and ‘we are both determined to keep it so’, Singh told scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a premier think-tank of China.