Chinese soldiers have backed away from the site of the deadly clash last month in the Galwan Valley along the un demarcated border, a sign of the countries’ progress in disengaging from a months-long standoff.
The two sides also appeared to have dismantled recent construction along the river valley high in the Karakoram mountains, satellite images showed. Soldiers on both sides have moved back about a kilometer (0.6 mile) from the site of their clash on June 15, when military personnel fought with rocks, clubs and their fists in hand-to-hand combat that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
The two sides have also moved apart at two locations in the Hot Spring area, out of at least five places where Indian officials said the Chinese had crossed the Line of Actual Control, the area of the border that remains disputed following a 1962 war that ended in an uneasy truce.
They said soldiers continued to stand at close range at two other sites along the 3,380-kilometer (2,100-mile) line of control, at Depsang and Pangong Lake. At the picturesque lake, the Chinese were 8 kilometers (5 miles) within the disputed border area, the officials said. Satellite images from June 28 appeared to show that the Indians had built a wall on their side of the Galwan Valley and the Chinese had expanded a camp at the end of a long road connected to Chinese military bases farther from the poorly defined border, according to experts. Images released on Monday by Maxar, a Colorado-based satellite imagery company, showed those recent additions now gone.
The phone call came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unannounced visit to a military base in the Indian territory of Ladakh, visiting injured soldiers and praising their bravery.
The countries’ special representatives on the border issue, Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, agreed in a phone call Sunday that “maintenance of peace and tranquility in the India-China border areas was essential for the further development of our bilateral relations,” and to “complete the ongoing disengagement process along the LAC expeditiously,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement Monday.